Why Dept of War?
By Lt. Col. Denny Gillem, U.S. Army (Retired)
Podcast: https://americasfrontlines.com/
Many folks don’t understand why President Trump renamed our Defense Department to the Department of War. In fact, this was the original title established in 1789 by the First Congress and President George Washington. There was a Department of War which ran our Army. Its seafaring counterpart, the Department of the Navy, was established in1798—although our first naval forces had been constituted by the Naval Act of 1794.
After WWII, which required constant cooperation between the two departments, Congress passed—and President Truman signed—the National Security Act of 1947. This created the Department of Defense—it also transformed our Army Air Corps into the US Air Force and created the Department of the Air Force.
It's worthy of note that, since the creation of the Defense Department our military has done a great deal fighting, but Congress has not declared war, and we haven’t won a real victory, despite our brave efforts. As a Vietnam vet, I am aware that while we never lost a major battle during the entire war, we did loose the war.
President Trump and our Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have said clearly that the Department of War wasn’t a more aggressive, war-winning-focused system. They see our Defense Department as a giant, passive bureaucracy that was inclined toward war avoidance rather than war-winning. It had adopted a psychologically bureaucratic, process-oriented system in which outcomes apparently didn’t matter. As long as funding kept coming, the bureaucracy was comfortable. In fact, it had become an extraordinarily expensive behemoth that could fight wars for over 20 years without winning—with no consequences or reform.
And, yes, our current leadership clearly see that avoiding unnecessary war is important. We do this with diplomacy, and that’s the State Department’s responsibility—not our field generals. When war is necessary, the Department of War should be focused solely on executing and winning the war swiftly.
When I was a cadet at West Point in the early 1960’s I had some time with a West Point grad who had recently ended a 4-year tour as Secretary of the Army. He told of his first few days in the office. He had each of his direct reports come in, one at a time, to brief him and make their recommendations. The final interview was with the head civil-servant in his department; this fellow didn’t say much and when pressed he said that the recently elected president was a mistake, that the new Army secretary was the wrong person for the job, and his job was to keep him from messing things up too bad.
When the civil servant departed, the secretary said to himself, I’ll be here for 4 years, and before I leave, he’ll be gone. The final comment: when I left he was and is still there.
We can have the best elected and appointed people in the world in our Pentagon, but the thousands of civil servants who do the grunt work and implement the policies are protected by the union contracts and often don’t do what our leaders believe is best for our nation. That’s true in almost all government, but in the Pentagon, we’re specifically talking about the life and death of our troops. We’ll need a completely restructured War Department to instill and maintain a war-winning perspective.
Perhaps, we should not deploy combat forces for more than a fixed period, perhaps a week or two, without Congress declaring War. The declaration would make it clear who our enemy is and what our goal is; once the goal is achieved, we bring our troops home. No more endless wars.
We can’t let anything, including unions, get in the way of our military being truly combat ready. This is a topic I’ll be briefly discussing on my podcast Americas Frontlines this week.
With great respect,
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Lt. Col. Denny Gillem, U.S. Army (Retired)
Podcast: https://americasfrontlines.com/
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About the Author:
Denny Gillem graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in June 1964 and was commissioned in the infantry. After military schooling he was assigned to Fort Carson, Colorado Springs, CO, where he served with the 5th Infantry Division and volunteered for duty in Vietnam.
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He served in combat with the First Infantry Division for a year and then assumed command of an airborne rifle company of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, KY. He first visited Michigan when his company deployed to the Detroit Riots in 1967. Shortly thereafter, his division deployed to Vietnam in time for the fighting during Tet 1968. As a consequence of these two combat tours Denny received the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and seven (7) US Awards for Valor.
Denny was selected for early promotion to major and sent to earn his masters degree in political science at the University of Texas at El Paso. He subsequently served with the ROTC unit at Stanford University where he earned another MA (in Education) and helped close the ROTC unit. After serving with a mechanized infantry battalion in Germany, Denny returned to the US to be a war planner for Europe and the Middle East at US Readiness Command in Florida.
He served as the head of the Army ROTC unit at the University of Tampa and then was transferred to serve as an Army Advisor to the Michigan National Guard. Denny and Marilyn fell in love with western Michigan and decided to retire from the Army and settle there.
Since leaving the Army, Denny has worked in sales, leadership, consulting, and academic positions in Michigan. He taught American Government at Grand Rapids Community College and political science and management for the University of Phoenix. He was the founding chair of the 1776 Society of Veterans, a political action committee. He has served in senior positions in state & national political campaigns and has run for office locally. Denny is the past-chair of the Grand Rapids Area Chamber’s Business Networking Committee.
Colonel Denny Gillem graduated from West Point in 1964 and served in the infantry for 22-years. Highlights of his military career include:
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1965-66 First Infantry Division in Vietnam; rifle platoon leader and aide-de-campe
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1967-68 101st Airborne Division in US and Vietnam. Rifle company commander and assistant G3 operations officer.
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1974-77 First Infantry Division in Germany; mechanized infantry battalion XO.
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1977-81 US Readiness Command – Mideast war planner
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1981-84 University of Tampa – Professor of Military Science
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1984-86 Army Advisor, Michigan Army National Guard