Sentinels at the Bacchanal
Military participation in the spectacle in D.C. is a reminder that trust in our armed forces depends on them standing apart.
OVER THE WEEKEND, military service members participated in the public spectacle in Washington that blended politics, entertainment, celebrity, and national symbolism. This was not just a matter of military musicians (in this case, the Marine Band and Army Band), a flyover (in this case, both the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels), and a joint color guard representing each service branch presenting the flag. There were also officers serving as aides to VIPs, standing in formation and escorting civilians. There were members of the National Guard providing site security alongside various federal civilian police. And there were invited service members participating in the main event on the South Lawn of the White House.
Seeing these images, I was reminded of a speech that, even though it was delivered nearly forty years ago, captured the essence of the scene and what was troubling about watching this event and seeing the military’s participation in it.
The speaker was the late Tom Wolfe, the novelist and cultural critic famed for picking up on trends long before others did. He spoke at West Point on “The Meaning of Freedom,” addressing an audience of several thousand cadets on October 8, 1987. Wolfe was funny, provocative, and perceptive in equal measure. Unlike many guest speakers who delivered carefully rehearsed remarks designed to leave audiences comfortable, Wolfe seemed to delight in making people laugh one moment and think deeply the next. His lecture, later published in the Army’s War College magazine Parameters, centered on Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms and what those freedoms meant for America’s future. But as was often the case with Wolfe, the most memorable parts of the evening were not the historical references but the observations about where the country was headed.
I attended that lecture. From 1984 to 1987, I served as a captain at West Point, assigned to the Department of Physical Education. Like many officers on three-year academy tours, I tried to take advantage of every opportunity the institution offered, including the steady stream of distinguished visiting speakers. On countless evenings, cadets and officers would gather in auditoriums and lecture halls to hear scholars, authors, journalists, diplomats, and public officials discuss ideas that stretched far beyond the matters of structured classes, military tactics, and physical training that occupied the cadets. Most of those lectures have faded into the background of memory, but Wolfe’s has remained with me for almost four decades. What struck me as his most memorable and clever phrase that night now reads almost like a warning delivered well ahead of its time.
Wolfe’s core argument was that America was gradually becoming a society in which fewer citizens had direct experience with military service. The all-volunteer force was still relatively young, and Wolfe believed its long-term effects might not yet be fully understood. As fewer Americans served, he predicted, the military might increasingly become a profession apart, populated by people who willingly embraced concepts such as duty, sacrifice, discipline, and service to something larger than themselves. Meanwhile, he continued, the broader culture would continue moving toward greater individual freedom, personal fulfillment, and self-aggrandizement. Neither development was necessarily bad, he mused, as one existed to protect the other. But Wolfe believed the separation between the two worlds would become increasingly noticeable.
Then came the line that has stayed with me all these years.
Those in the military, Wolfe said, would likely become “sentinels at the bacchanal” and “armed monks at the orgy.”
The audience laughed. It was vintage Wolfe: colorful, humorous, and impossible to forget. Yet beneath the laughter was a serious point. A bacchanal, in ancient Rome, was a festival of indulgence and excess; monks, of course, represented discipline, restraint, and devotion to a higher calling. Wolfe was describing a future in which military professionals would increasingly find themselves standing apart from the culture they were sworn to defend. Their mission would not be to condemn it, reform it, or participate in it. Their mission would be to protect it. And that might become increasingly a challenge for the cadets in the audience, some of whom would be generals and military leaders in thirty years.
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LOOKING BACK NOW, what strikes me is that Wolfe didn’t suggest the “monks” would voluntarily abandon their vows. His concern was that the surrounding culture would increasingly pull them toward the celebration, the “feast.” The military’s professionalism, discipline, and public credibility would make it attractive to those seeking legitimacy. The danger was that the revelers would repeatedly ask them to step away from their posts and become part of the festivities.
Over the course of my military career, I watched many of the trends Wolfe described unfold. The military became smaller relative to the population. Fewer Americans now have direct ties to service members. The percentage of citizens who understand military life through personal experience has declined steadily. At the same time, because of transformational efforts over the last few decades, the military became increasingly professional, more educated, and more focused on standards of conduct and accountability. During my time in service, my fellow service members were increasingly taught and trained that the oath remained the defining feature of the profession.
What Wolfe understood, and what many Americans still struggle to understand, is that the military’s role in a constitutional republic is fundamentally different from that of any other institution. The military exists to defend the nation, but it does so by standing apart from the nation’s political and cultural struggles. Its purpose is not to determine the outcome of those struggles, its purpose is to ensure they can occur freely.
That is why the image of the sentinel is more important than the image of the monk.
A sentinel stands watch over the feast. He does not organize it nor judge its worth. He does not determine the menu. He does not decide who attends. He does not settle arguments among the guests. He does not determine what values should guide the gathering. Those responsibilities belong to the participants themselves. In a free society, citizens decide what kind of nation they wish to have. They debate questions of morality, culture, public policy, civic responsibility, and national priorities. In a healthy society, they persuade one another, vote, organize, advocate, and engage in the difficult work of self-government and working for the greater good of all.
The military’s responsibility is different. Its responsibility is to guard the constitutional framework that allows those debates to occur. It protects the feast. But it must never become a part of the festivities.
That distinction may sound subtle, but it is one of the most important principles of the American republic. If citizens believe society is losing its moral bearings, it is their responsibility to address that through democratic means. If they believe civic responsibility has declined, they must work to strengthen it through persuasion, education, leadership, and example. If they believe political leaders are taking the country in the wrong direction, they have every right—and indeed every obligation—to make the case. But the military is not, and must not be, the instrument through which those arguments are resolved. The military exists so that arguments can continue to occur peacefully and freely.
In many respects, this is what makes military service unique. The officer corps, the noncommissioned officer corps, and the enlisted ranks are sworn to defend rights they cannot fully exercise while in uniform. Military professionals deliberately surrender a degree of personal freedom to protect the freedom of others. They accept restrictions on political activity. They refrain from publicly engaging in many of the debates that shape the nation they serve. The active military must not participate in the bacchanalian feast.
Americans trust their military not because they agree with every war or every policy. They trust it because they believe the institution belongs to the nation rather than to a faction within the nation. Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, urban and rural Americans could all look at the military and see it as their military. Any segment of the nation that attempts to usurp that trust imperils the nation.
Institutions rarely drift from their purpose through conscious decisions by those within them. More often, the drift begins when external actors value associating with the institution’s reputation. When politicians seek the military’s credibility. When public movements seek its symbolism. When commercial enterprises seek its prestige. When cultural figures seek the aura of service and sacrifice that the military represents. None of this is necessarily done with ill intent; many of those issuing the invitation sincerely admire the military and want to associate with it.
And that is precisely what makes the process so dangerous. The invitation feels harmless. The association feels ceremonial. The symbolism appears positive. But over time, the cumulative effect can pull the institution away from the careful distance that has long protected both it and the republic it serves.
The irony is that the military’s value must come from its neutrality. The military is trusted because it stands outside the contest and it is respected because it is seen as belonging to everyone. The moment it becomes associated with one side, one movement, one personality, one cultural trend, or even one event, the source of that credibility begins to erode. The prestige being borrowed is gradually diminished by the borrowing itself.
THAT IS WHAT CAME TO MIND as I watched those images from Washington this weekend. And let me be clear: Those pictures reflected much of what I’ve seen lately. My concern here isn’t that single event, or any single administration, or any single political movement. My concern is the broader trend that Wolfe identified. The profession’s value lies precisely in its refusal to become just another participant in America’s cultural and political contests. In an age of social media, celebrity culture, and relentless political polarization, maintaining that discipline is becoming increasingly difficult.
The military’s role was never to lead the feast, regulate the feast, or become part of the feast. Its role is to guard the gates while a free people argued, debated, stumbled, corrected themselves, and ultimately decided what kind of society they truly aspired to be. That responsibility belongs to citizens. It belongs to elected leaders. It belongs to institutions of government, faith, education, and civil society. Those decisions are the responsibility of we the people.
The temptation to surround political causes, cultural movements, or public spectacles with military symbolism may provide short-term advantage, but it comes at a long-term cost. Tom Wolfe’s warning to those cadets a long time ago was not that the sentinels would abandon their posts. He implied the danger was that the guests at the feast would become so accustomed to seeing and admiring the sentinels nearby that they would eventually invite them to join the celebration. And that’s where the danger truly begins.
If the citizens become comfortable with the sentinels becoming guests at the feast, or if those sentinels willingly participate, many in the republic may begin to lose confidence that anyone is still guarding the gates.
A mature, thoughtful piece, the opposite of the "rage bait" that one often reads. I wish there were more people like Gen. Hertling in the national media
Trump plays with our military members as if they are toy soldiers. And I hope our military, as an institution, will not suffer irreparable harm from Hegseth. Thank you General, for your contribution to our understanding of military matters.