OPINION:
With an executive order, the Department of Defense is going back to its original name, the Department of War (“Trump renames Defense Department as ‘Department of War,’” Web, Sept. 5). I have to admit, as a retired civil servant who spent most of that career working for Defense (and most of those years for Navy Medicine), I have mixed feelings about the change.
It has always been the Defense Department in my lifetime, as I was born years after World War II ended. In sports, the word defense usually conjures up images of football: tackles, fumble recoveries and breaking up passes. I think of the War Department as that of the Union Army during the Civil War and Secretary Edwin Stanton, who many thought took over too much power after President Lincoln was assassinated.
Back then, the Navy Department was separate, and there was not yet an air force because there were no planes.
I would suggest another suitable name: the Department of Military Operations. This would refer to foreign military operations because those now include humanitarian medical operations and disaster relief as well as “peacekeeping.” After all, since 2002, the real Department of Defense has been the Homeland Security Department. The Coast Guard provides a defensive military presence, while U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement provides defense of our borders.
I hope President Trump considers this name change.
JAMES SCARBOROUGH
Arlington, Virginia
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