Clinton Has to Shed His Anti-Military Bias : Leadership: The chief can’t command until service people feel that their well-being is a priority for this Administration.

A nagging task for President Clinton in 1994 is repair of his credibility as a commander respected by veterans and the military; otherwise, how will he manage armed confrontations in Korea, Eastern Europe or other trouble spots? A President whose decisions show that he, his wife and other closer advisers still loathe the military is not in the best position to order young Americans into combat.

The appointment of Bobby Ray Inman as secretary of defense is a good step as far as it goes, but it does not face the crisis of depressed military morale, nor will it change the negative attitudes and enormous power of the Clinton inner circle.

I am one of a number of concerned people who believe that matters are grave enough to require a presidential commission. This commission would assure coordinated, top-level attention to the 100,000 families that are being ushered out of military life as the armed forces are downsized and restructured; it would open communication with Clinton advisers who were anti-war activists in the 1960s and ‘70s and set a positive tone for civil-vet-military relations in the post-Cold War world. Such a commission would show strong presidential character in facing and healing these divisions head-on.

Among the people supportive of this idea are Vietnam veterans, like former Beirut hostage Terry Anderson and Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographer Lewis Puller Jr., both of whom campaigned for Clinton; military-sociology expert Charles Moskos of Northwestern University, who advised the Administration on military relations during 1993, and parents of servicemen, like Larry and Gail Joyce and James and Carolyn Smith, whose Army Ranger sons were killed in Mogadishu. Larry and James are both Vietnam vets.

Our recommendation is based on interviews we and others conducted with active-duty military personnel worldwide, including in Somalia and at all levels of rank in the Pentagon, and with veterans and members of the Clinton Administration. Especially in the enlisted ranks, troops feel that no political leaders are looking out for them. The President is criticized for not really caring about the soldier or the soldier’s family, for pushing leadership responsibility off onto subordinates, and for putting soldiers’ lives in the hands of White House appointees who lack military experience.

The true measure of the President’s attitude toward military service--the number of vets he appoints to top, Senate-confirmed positions in his Administration--supports the troops’ perceptions. Of approximately 350 men confirmed so far, 33 are vets; two women appointees are vets also. If we set aside the 16 vets named to posts in the Defense Department and Veterans Administration, that leaves 17 spread among all other Cabinet-level agencies. Put another way, vets hold 5% of the top non-military-related posts, yet constitute about one-third of the generation that came of age during the Vietnam era--the President’s generation. What these figures add up to is discrimination against veterans. Most noteworthy, no one with combat experience heads the departments of the Navy, Air Force or Army. Retired Adm. Inman is the only vet among the seven most powerful Pentagon appointees.

Although the President has met with the father of Polly Klaas and other victims of tragedy, he has ignored the request to meet with families of Rangers killed in Mogadishu. He has not addressed concerns that soldiers are endangered because White House amateurs call the military shots, or anger that a President and aides who opposed intervention in Vietnam now want interventions to “enlarge democracy.”

The sum of these factors is that active-duty military and vets are again treated as second-class citizens, just like in the 1970s. The cure is one of caring, not expenditure: Form a commission, meet with some of the grieving and worried families and affirm that the number of vets in the Administration--including women--should roughly reflect the proportion of vets in America.

President Clinton has constitutional authority to send troops to battle, and, thanks to their respect for the office, he can count on them absolutely. But he must act soon if he is to claim moral authority to send them to battle.