PERSPECTIVE ON THE MILITARY : Today’s Army Is a Different Breed, Some of It Repugnant : The all volunteer force is more susceptible to extremist views, so officers must be vigilant in weeding out racists.

For the past quarter of a century, the all volunteer military has served this country well. After a rocky start in the mid-1970s, as the Pentagon learned how to compete in the marketplace for people, the volunteer force has produced the most highly qualified, professional and efficient fighting force in this nation’s history. Virtually all of today’s recruits are high school graduates with above average scores on the armed forces qualification test. The volunteer military demonstrated its awesome capabilities in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and continues to display its professionalism in such difficult situations as Haiti and Bosnia. Moreover, replacing the draft with an all volunteer Army helped the nation cope with the troublesome matter of deciding who must serve when not all do.

But as the highly publicized events in Oklahoma City and Fayetteville, N.C., have demonstrated, there is another dimension to this professional Army. Last spring, two discharged Army veterans, who had made no secret of their racist and antigovernment views and then association with right-wing groups while on active duty, were charged with blowing up a federal office building in Oklahoma and killing 169 people. And last week, three active-duty soldiers, one who openly displayed a Nazi flag in the barracks, were charged in connection with the killing of two African American civilians in a random hate crime. While the events at Oklahoma City and Fayetteville have garnered the most publicity, there have been a disturbing number of such incidents in the past few years. Three years ago, the Army found it necessary to publish a manual for commanders on how to identify and deal with gangs, racially motivated incidents and other hate crimes. The killings in Fayetteville have forced the secretary of the Army to investigate the extent of the involvement of white supremacists and other hate groups in the Army.

The Army is not the only service plagued by such aberrant behavior. In 1991, dozens of naval aviators fondled female Navy personnel at the Tailhook convention. Ten of the accused men refused to cooperate with investigators. As a result of this “code of silence,” not a single officer was court-martialed. A military judge even accused the chief of naval operations of misleading investigators.

Hate crimes in the military have not been confined to blacks and women. In 1993, when President Clinton announced his intention to lift the ban on gays in the military, a rash of attacks on homosexuals broke out in the ranks. Marine Col. Fred Peck, whose son is gay, told Congress that he would not want his son to join the military because he would be in danger from other servicemen.

While these incidents cannot be blamed solely on the creation of the professional volunteer force, it is certainly a factor. The career military in this country, as in most nations, is generally more conservative than the rest of society. Prior to the creation of the volunteer army, this innate conservatism was tempered by the infusion of draftees whose views more closely reflected those of society as a whole. The volunteer Army draws a much narrower segment of society than the draft did. Volunteers have a longer initial term of service, reenlist in much higher numbers and have a far lower turnover rate than draftees. Their conservative tendencies are constantly reinforced and young soldiers are easy prey to the extreme right-wing groups that are proliferating.

Military people who embrace extremist views pose a twofold danger to society. First, given that 25% of the military is composed of blacks, soldiers with white supremacist tendencies can easily undermine unit cohesion. Second, since military people are trained to use weapons of violence, these skills can be turned against society, as they apparently were in Oklahoma City and Fayetteville.

The answer is not to return to the draft. That only would create another generation of draft evaders and make it more difficult to send the military into messy situations like Bosnia. The answer is for the civilian and military leaders to be aware that many individuals with extreme views may be drawn to the military; while surface behavior can be changed, attitudes may not have been. Thus, these leaders must be vigilant in rooting out those who display an affinity toward racial and gender-based hatred. Members of the armed services enjoy the citizen’s constitutional right of association; they cannot be disciplined for joining a group that espouses racism. To violate Pentagon policy, the soldier must actively participate in the group. Ironically, a soldier can be expelled for saying “I am gay” but for not for saying “I am a fascist.”