Have you heard about the Pentagon's foul-up over a hat?
To anyone who has ever served in the U.S. Armed Forces, as I have, it won't come as news that military bureaucrats can come up with incredibly dumb decisions.
It's even less of a surprise that when they try to deal with the blowback from those decisions, they get into even more absurd jams. That's what's happened in the wrangle over a hat — but a very special hat: a beret, to be specific. More to the point, a black beret.
Forget the debate over a national missile defense system. Forget the threat of combat in Macedonia. Forget the ramming of a Japanese fishing boat by a U.S. sub. What's had the Pentagon in an uproar in the past five months has been the intense controversy over the Army's decision to issue all troops black berets, until now the proud headgear and symbol of the elite Ranger units.
It was an idea born of a particularly misguided kind of political correctness — the notion that all ordinary soldiers' self-esteem and spirit would be elevated by wearing headgear that was seen as a coveted symbol of military pride by a special corps of highly trained warriors. It was a spectacularly dumb idea, a bogus way of raising self-esteem akin to giving every pupil in kindergarten some kind of meaningless paper award just for showing up and breathing.
The predictable reaction was instantaneous rage. All three of the specially trained Army units that wear berets — the Rangers (black), Special Forces (green) and Airborne (maroon) — were incensed and vocal about it.
Sentiments like those prompted President Bush to suggest that the Army reconsider its decision. And the Army, in its inimitable way, fixed it — and made it even worse. It compounded its dumb move with an even dumber one. To save face, the Army stuck to its decision to give all soldiers black berets, but to placate the Rangers, it would issue them special beige ones instead. Oh, please! Beige, no less. Why not puce?
To further compound this snafu, the Army found that the American manufacturers of berets could not handle the additional 600,000 orders. So, despite rules prohibiting military clothing to be made abroad, the Army ordered the new berets to be made in China. Perhaps now the Chinese army, using prison labor, will end up making our soldiers' headgear.
Berets have always had a certain cachet of pride and defiance in and out of military life. For American expatriates who adopted them in France, and later for beatniks, they were a symbol of noncomformism and artistic aspirations.
When I served in the Army, I always thought berets looked good. But I wasn't in the Rangers or the Airborne, and wearing one without having earned it would have made me feel like a fraud. So much for self-esteem. There is still time: Rescind the Chinese order for black berets.