Charles Moskos

Charles Constantine Moskos, Jr. (May 20, 1934 – May 31, 2008) was a sociologist of the United States military and a professor at Northwestern University. Described as the nation's "most influential military sociologist" by The Wall Street Journal, Moskos was often a source for reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and other periodicals. He was the author of the "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy, which prohibited homosexual service members from acknowledging their sexual orientation from 1994 to 2011.

Charles C. Moskos
Born(1934-05-04)May 4, 1934
Chicago, Illinois
DiedMay 31, 2008(2008-05-31) (aged 74)
Santa Monica, California
NationalityAmerican
OccupationSociologist and Professor

Biography
Charles Moskos (left) with Army Staff Sgt. Donald Pratt (center) and an unidentified soldier during a 1967 trip to Vietnam

Moskos was born May 20, 1934, in Chicago, Illinois to Greek immigrant parents from southern Albania (Northern Epirus). In his book Greek Americans: Struggle and Success,[1] which he jokingly called "his bestseller" bought only by Greek Americans, he recalled that his father, christened Photios, adopted the name Charles after pulling it out of a hat full of "slips with appropriately American-sounding first names."

Charles Moskos attended Princeton University, where he graduated cum laude in 1956, on tuition scholarship and waited tables to pay for room and board. He was drafted into the U.S. Army right after graduation in 1956. Moskos served with the Army's combat engineers in Germany where he wrote his first article, "Has the Army Killed Jim Crow?" for the Negro History Bulletin. After leaving the military, he enrolled at UCLA, where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in 1963.

Career

His first teaching job was at the University of Michigan, but he was soon recruited to Northwestern University, where he was one of the most popular sociology professors in the school.[2] "Students rush to his classes to hear enthralling lectures peppered with cheesy jokes and anecdotes," the Daily Northwestern recalled in a May 2008 editorial, written the month before his death. "They may be drawn by his famed don't-ask-don't-tell military policy, but they stick around to experience his grandfather-like interactions that make every student feel personally addressed."

Along with a number of other notable Greek Americans, he was a founding member of the Next Generation Initiative, a leadership program aimed at getting students involved in public affairs.

Moskos took many research trips to war-torn countries. He visited American troops in Vietnam (1965 and 1967); the Dominican Republic (1966); Honduras (1984); Panama (1989); Saudi Arabia (1991); Somalia (1993); Haiti (1994); Macedonia (1995); Hungary (1996); Bosnia and the Serb Republic (1996 and 1998); Kosovo (2000); Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq (2003). Non-American military visits include: United Nations Force in Cyprus (1969–70), Italian Army in Albania (1994), Greek Army in Bosnia (1998), British Army in Iraq (2003).

Moskos also advocated restoring the military draft. He insisted that enforcing a shared military experience for Americans of different classes, races and economic backgrounds forged a sense of common purpose. "This shared experience helped instill in those who served, as in the national culture generally, a sense of unity and moral seriousness that we would not see again -- until after September 11, 2001," he wrote in a November 2001 article in Washington Monthly (with Paul Glastris). "It's a shame that it has taken terrorist attacks to awaken us to the reality of our shared national fate."

Charles Moskos was a respected source for the military and the media and his influence in the military went very high.[2] Military commanders such as Gen. James L. Jones, the U.S. Marine Corps commandant, and Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, former U.S. Army chief of staff, regularly sought his advice.[2] In 2005 Moskos completed a study for the Joint Chiefs of Staff on international military cooperation.

He was author of several books, including The American Enlisted Man, The Military - More Than Just A Job?, Soldiers and Sociologists, The New Conscientious Objection, A Call To Civic Service, and Reporting War When There Is No War. He was also the author of All That We Can Be: Black Leadership And Racial Integration The Army Way, which won the Washington Monthly award for the best political book of 1996. In addition, he published well over one hundred articles in scholarly journals and news publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Atlantic Monthly, and the New Republic. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. He was a leading figure in the field of civil-military relations.

In addition, he was consulted by Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush and testified before Congress on issues of military personnel policy several times. In 1992, he was appointed by Bush to serve on the President's Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Military. He was decorated by the governments of the United States, France, and the Netherlands for his research and held the Distinguished Service Medal, the U.S. Army's highest decoration for a civilian. He served as President (1989–1995) and Chair (1989–1997) of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society.

Don't ask, don't tell

What Moskos called his "real fame" came when he coined the phrase "don't ask, don't tell". In 1993, to help break an impasse between the Clinton administration and military leadership over the status of gays in the military, Moskos devised a compromise policy and coined the phrase "don't ask, don't tell". Originally suggested as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Seek, Don't Flaunt" to Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman Senator Sam Nunn, it was eventually shortened to "don't ask, don't tell". Secretary of Defense Les Aspin approved the policy, and it was recommended to the President. In the following months, Moskos worked with the White House, the Armed Forces, and the Senate Armed Forces Committee to draft the policy, which eventually was adopted.

In 2000, Moskos told academic journal Lingua Franca that he felt the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy would be gone within five to ten years. He criticized the unit cohesion argument, the most frequent rationale for the continued exclusion of gay and lesbian service members from the U.S. military. Instead he argued that since "modesty rights" require that women have separate bathrooms and showers, heterosexuals also had modesty rights: "I should not be forced to shower with a woman. I should not be forced to shower with a gay."[3][4]

Moskos's comments were met with outrage by gay activists and Northwestern University students who argued that his fear of being eyed in the shower was not sufficient justification for denying equal rights to gay men and lesbians.[5]

Influence on Military Sociology

Charles Moskos was a leading figure in the field of Military Sociology. He was a prolific scholar who had a knack for spotting trends in military organizations. He is particularly known for the Institutional/Occupational Dichotomy and for the Postmodern Military.[6]

Moskos introduced the Institutional/Occupational Dichotomy in the late 1970s[7] By that time, the United States had completed its transition from the draft to an All-Volunteer Force. Market and market mechanisms were beginning to have a profound influence on military organizations. Moskos showed how the armed forces was losing its institutional characteristics and moving toward an occupational or marketplace oriented model (soldier residence and workplace separation, increased reliance on contractors, and recruitment based on appeals to pay and benefits are examples). He wrote many influential articles and books on the subject.[8][9]The Institutional/Occupational dichotomy has had a lasting and international influence on the literature on enlistment motivation.[10][11][12][13]

At the end of the Cold War Moskos identified yet another trend in military organizations, which he called the postmodern military.[14] The threat environment eased considerably as the disbanding of the Soviet Union ushered in or reinforced many changes. He noted that the perceived threat moved from that of Nuclear war to the subnational level where ethnic conflict and terrorism became key concerns. The force structure moved from a large professional military to a much smaller one. The definition of defense moved from a consistent support of the alliance to new missions such as peacekeeping. Civilian employees and contractors grew in importance. Full integration of women and gays became a norm. Conscientious objection was subsumed under civilian service.[15] His edited book with John Allen Williams and David Segal (The postmodern military: Armed forces after the Cold War)is among his most influential. [16][17][18][19][20]The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan changed the threat environment yet again. Although many of the characteristics of the postmodern military identified by Moskos remained others changed.[21]

Personal life

He met his German wife Ilca, a foreign language teacher, while studying at the University of California, Los Angeles. He retired from full-time teaching in 2003 and moved to Santa Monica, returning to Northwestern each fall to teach an introductory sociology course. His wife taught foreign languages at New Trier High School. They had two sons, Peter, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Andrew, co-founder of Boom Chicago in Amsterdam. His brother, Harry Moskos of Knoxville, Tennessee, was editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Moskos died on May 31, 2008 at his home in Santa Monica, California.[22] His wife wrote: "Charles C. Moskos, of Santa Monica, Calif, formerly of Evanston, Ill, draftee of U.S. Army, died peacefully in his sleep after a struggle with prostate cancer."[23]

Selected writings
  • "From Institutions to Occupation: Trends in Military Organization," Armed Forces & Society, vol. 4 (1977), 41–50
  • With Morris Janowitz, "Racial Composition in the All-Volunteer Force," Armed Forces & Society, vol. 1 (1974), 109–123
  • "Institutional/Occupational Trends in Armed Forces: An Update," Armed Forces & Society, vol. 12 (1986), 377–382
  • With Morris Janowitz, "Five Years of the All-Volunteer Force: 1973–1978" Armed Forces & Society, vol. 5 (1979), 171–218
  • "National service in America: an idea whose time is coming," Perspectives on culture and society, vol. 1 (1988), 63–80
  • Moskos, Charles C. Institution Versus Occupation: Contrasting Models of Military Organization. Washington, D.C.: Wilson Center, International Security Studies Program, 1981. OCLC 14169476
  • Moskos, Charles C. Peace Soldiers: The Sociology of a United Nations Military Force. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1976. ISBN 0-226-54225-4 OCLC 1527429
  • Moskos, Charles C. Public Opinion and the Military Establishment. Beverly Hills, Calif. : Sage Publications, 1971. ISBN 0-8039-0116-X OCLC 154044
  • Moskos, Charles C. Soldiers and Sociology. [Alexandria, Va.]: United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1988. OCLC 22209585
  • Moskos, Charles C. The American Enlisted Man; The Rank and File in Today's Military. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1970. OCLC 109458
  • Moskos, Charles C. Greek Orthodox Youth Today: A Sociological Perspective. In, 'Greek Orthodox Youth Today', Edited by N.M.Vaporis. Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Foundation, 1983. ISBN 0-916586-56-1
  • Moskos, Charles C. The Sociology of Army Reserves: An Organizational Assessment. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University, 1990. OCLC 23067904

Legacy

The academic community published a tribute volume of essays in 2009, entitled Advances in Military Sociology: Essays in Honour of Charles C. Moskos.[24]

The Pritzker Military Museum & Library holds his book collection. His papers are held nearby at Northwestern University.[25]

See also

Notes
  1. Transaction Publications, 2001
  2. Taubeneck, Anne (Spring 2002). "All That He Can Be". Northwestern. Retrieved 2007-01-21.
  3. Frank, Nathaniel (October 2000). "The Real Story of Military Sociology and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'". Lingua Franca. pp. 71–81. Archived from the original on 2007-10-06. Retrieved 2006-08-09.
  4. Independent Gay Forum: Paul Varnell, "DADT Unravels Further," November 22, 2000 Archived September 16, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, accessed April 4, 2012
  5. Jackson, Peter (24 June 2008). "The scar on the Moskos legacy". The Daily Northwestern.
  6. Shields P.M. (2020) Dynamic Intersection of Military and Society. In: Sookermany A. (eds) Handbook of Military Sciences p. 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02866-4_31-1
  7. Moskos, C. (1977). From institution to occupation: Trends in military organization. Armed Forces & Society, 4, 41–50.
  8. Moskos, C. C. (1986). Institutional/occupational trends in armed forces: An update. Armed Forces & Society, 12(3), 377-382.
  9. Moskos, C. C., & Wood, F. R. (Eds.). (1988). The military: More than just a job?. Pergamon-Brassey
  10. Taylor, J. K., Clerkin, R. M., Ngaruiya, K. M., & Velez, A.-L. K. (2015). An Exploratory Study of Public Service Motivation and the Institutional–Occupational Model of the Military. Armed Forces & Society, 41(1), 142–162. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X13489119
  11. Woodruff, T. D. (2017). Who Should the Military Recruit? The Effects of Institutional, Occupational, and Self-Enhancement Enlistment Motives on Soldier Identification and Behavior. Armed Forces & Society, 43(4), 579–607. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X17695360
  12. Bury, P. (2017). Recruitment and Retention in British Army Reserve Logistics Units. Armed Forces & Society, 43(4), 608–631. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X16657320
  13. Aydiner, C., Orak, U., & Solakoglu, O. (2019). What Factors Influenced Turkish Military Officers’ and NCOs’ Motivation to Serve Prior to the July 2016 Coup Attempt? Armed Forces & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X19841663
  14. Moskos, C. (1998) The American Soldier after the Cold War: Towards a Post-Modern Military? US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI). https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA354194.pdf
  15. Moskos, C. (2000) Toward a Postmodern military: The United States as a Paradigm. In Moskos, C. C., Williams, J. A., & Segal, D. R. (Eds.).The postmodern military: Armed forces after the Cold War. p. 15. Oxford University Press
  16. Moskos, C. C., Williams, J. A., & Segal, D. R. (Eds.). (2000). The postmodern military: Armed forces after the Cold War. Oxford University Press on Demand. ISBN 978-0195133295
  17. Bondy, H. (2004). Postmodernism and the Source of Military Strength in the Anglo West. Armed Forces & Society, 31(1), 31–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X0403100103
  18. Snider, D. (2000). America's Postmodern Military. World Policy Journal, 17(1), 47-54. Retrieved August 9, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/40209676
  19. Webster, J. E. (2019). Resisting Change: Toxic Masculiniity in the Post Modern United States Armed Forces,(1980s-Present). University of Central Oklahoma.
  20. Shields, P. M. (2011). An American Perspective on 21st Century Expeditionary Mindset and Core Values: A Review of the Literature. In Furst, H. and G. Kummel (Eds.) Core values and the expeditionary mindset: Armed forces in metamorphosis (pp. 15-35). Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. ISBN 978-3832965143. https://www.academia.edu/32990468/An_American_Perspective_on_21st_Century_Expeditionary_Mindset_and_Core_Values_A_Review_of_the_Literature
  21. Williams, J.A. (2008). The Military and Society: Beyond the Postmodern Era. Orbis. 52, 2 pp. 199-218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2008.01.003
  22. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/us/05moskos.html?_r=0
  23. Fassler, Joe (2008-06-01). "Charlie Moskos - James Fallows". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2014-05-02.
  24. Caforio, Giuseppe (2009-12-04). Advances in Military Sociology: Essays in Honour of Charles C. Moskos, Part A (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development): Dr Giuseppe Caforio, Manas Chatterji: 9781848558908: Amazon.com: Books. ISBN 978-1848558908.
  25. "Dr. Charles C. Moskos Collection | Pritzker Military Museum & Library | Chicago". Pritzkermilitary.org. Retrieved 2014-05-02.

Further reading
  • Caforio, Giuseppe, and Charles Constantine Moskos. Advances in Military Sociology : Essays in Honor of Charles C. Moskos Pt. A. Bingley [u.a.]: Emerald, 2009. ISBN 1-84855-890-2 OCLC 838018738
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