Pat Stuart

I remember laughing when President Donald Trump signed the order forming a US Space Force. “That’s just what we need, another bunch of toy soldiers ... space cadets at that. Ha ha.”

The Pentagon has never been my favorite place. A girl from Wyoming seeped in a culture of rugged individualism just naturally has issues with a system designed to drain the individuality out of its members. I once shivered to see endless rows of regimented people on parade like little toy soldiers — all dressed the same, standing the same, walking the same. Robots, not people, I thought.

Worse, to me, was the ease with which otherwise ordinary people conformed, willingly followed to the letter written codes militating every aspect of their behavior. The results, as I saw it, were sycophancy, unquestioning obedience and the destruction of independent thought.

For a couple of years, I lived in a high rise apartment building on the far side of a parking lot from the Pentagon’s south entrances. At that time, I also had an address in the Pentagon (a phone, unit name and room number), shopped in the Pentagon’s mall, and sometimes met my husband (then an Army Signal Corps civilian) for lunch there.

Up close and personal, it didn’t seem so bad ... civilians were everywhere. They seemed totally normal while the few people I knew in uniform behaved just like everyone else. More or less. Then, too, most of my colleagues within the CIA’s operations directorate had spent a minimum of two years in the military in lieu of holding a master’s degree.

I had the degree, but they had the advantage. Besides being male, they could internalize the military mentality which put me at a disadvantage in a way I still am not sure I understand. It took me years, a number of which were spent working with military attaches, but at least I finally came to appreciate why the military is as it is.

Then I had a catbird seat for the first Gulf War where the strengths and weaknesses of our military were on full display. Moving and positioning some 500,000 troops of multiple nationalities in a desert wilderness was a massive undertaking with more than a few hiccups — a lot more.

At the same time, the use of satellites in that conflict demonstrated the kind of imaginative thinking outside the box I’d previously considered unlikely from the military mind. Those 40-odd satellites provided critical intelligence as well as communications for command and control. They also gave weather data to the planners, proved an amazing warning system of missile launches, tracked the missiles as well, and provided navigation aids for land and sea forces.

Yes, despite this experience, I laughed at the idea of building not just an entirely new branch for the military but giving it responsibility for the, well, the universe. I wondered, too, just how the military mind would cope with the infinity of space, the politics of the Pentagon and lack of a clear-cut mission. After all, the so-called Space Force would be responsible for more than just satellites.

Three years on, we’re beginning to find out how much more. No surprise, the commanders reduced the universe to a half-dozen easily understood missions. Naturally, too, one of the first orders of business was typically military. Let’s call it regimenting — designing uniforms and medals and insignia, inventing a command structure and inventing new names for its elements, militating who can do what in showers of manuals ... you know ... getting the “erasing individuality” framework in place. They’re still at it, but for the some 13,000 guardians (yes, they’re not airmen or soldiers or sailors, they’re guardians) who comprise the Space Force, it’s pretty much a done deal.

Their mission, while limited in its scope, is still pretty amorphous. Usually, this is something the military hate, but their command seems fairly comfortable with the evolving nature of what they’re supposed to be doing. In a recent article, I read that one of their unit commanders actually said that the Space Command doesn’t have doctrine. They have theories. 

My goodness. Theories can be argued and disproven and changed. How unmilitary!

He went on to talk about how the command needs to be open to new ideas, innovative and flexible ... nimble-footed (he didn’t use that word but I think that’s what he meant).

Well, well. I may just have found a part of the military machine where I could feel comfortable.  Oh, my.