2024-01-21 06:28:14
An opinion article is always written through the prism of the author’s ideas and lived experiences. I am a liberal and these days it has been 24 years since I left the Argentine Air Force to join the technical team of the then Minister of Defense Ricardo López Murphy.
With the help of Marcelo Acuña we focus on a deep and unique study. This resulted in the first study of Argentine defense costs and the impact of this spending on the municipalities and the country’s economy. We generated a vision of change inspired by the leading Defense Ministries of the Western world under the title “Defense Review 2000” of which I was a scribe along with Fabián Calle and others.
This reform program was partially implemented by five presidential administrations and all ministerial administrations from Nilda Garré to the present. Perhaps, resistance to change, the imperfect and partial mode of implementation and the prevailing political interests meant that it did not have the same success as similar programs achieved in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
This personal experience was leveraged into a previous exciting career in the Air Force where I was able to grow professionally, thanks to the luck of having had excellent bosses. This started with a very tough trial by fire: the Military Aviation School. Even more difficult for an agnostic liberal in an ultra-conservative environment that put a filter that I was able to pass thanks to my classmates when my continuity in that second year of cadets was in their hands, when I revealed my non-Catholic status. Maybe because President Raúl Alfonsín gave us the saber. Perhaps because the opening winds were blowing at that time, I was able to overcome the insurmountable.
I faced officers, chaplains and senior cadets determined to convert me, to evangelize me, forcing me to participate in masses, in spiritual retreats, with forced nightly readings of the New Testament and with mandatory classes on religion and also on morals. They might not. I graduated, without any resentment, with the pride of having overcome what others might not and with the intention of helping those who come from a minority to fulfill their military vocation. This is my prism.
When days ago, in one of the most watched television programs, a participant revealed that he was the partner of a member of the Air Force and he made himself known publicly, I said to myself: “Finally, it was understood.” Defense is a service that is provided to the 47 million Argentines. This number does not represent a monotone set of ideas, feelings, beliefs and life choices. In Defense there is no monolithic Spartan elite either. She is Athenian, Theban, Macedonian, Hellenic. It is a group of citizens with a military vocation who come from a diversity to defend the entire group.
As long as suitability, merit and discipline prevail, men and women in arms are public servants and their ideas, feelings, beliefs and individual life options must be respected in accordance with the liberal spirit that illuminates our National Constitution since 1853.
I celebrate this opening in the Air Force and I also know that in the other forces this is today a fact, not a wish. No one can be discriminated once morest in their military career because of their individual life choices. Everyone must be valued for their strictly professional value, whether soldier, non-commissioned officer or officer. Accepting diversity and minorities also opens your mind to new ideas and approaches in all defense work. This will help the change that can lead us to success. Break clumsy resistance. Do not be afraid of it. It does not mean any resignation for the majority. Just coexistence for a common purpose. This is how Pope Francis understands and promotes it for the entire Roman Catholic apostolic flock. However, when I see news from Israel and Argentines appear wearing the uniform of that country’s Defense Force, I say to myself: “How many excellent professionals we are missing.” Although in these 40 years of democracy, the opening to non-Catholics in the armed forces is more accepted since there are personnel who practice evangelical worship, I do not know that another similar one has been made to those Argentines of Jewish religion.
Today, the commander in chief has a rapprochement with Judaism. An opportunity for someone from our Jewish community to decide to enter our training schools and for President Javier Milei to give them the officer’s saber just as President Alfonsín did to me. It is a challenge that requires – like tango – two; of some who vocationally want to join our defense and of others who want to accompany them so that they successfully reach the goal without going through what I had to go through.
Although the military vicariate exists, consolidating a religious opening would be a great step for the armed forces of a secular State. A huge one for our society. I do not believe that any religious authority in the country is opposed and the President of the Nation should promote it. I hope this is understood and promoted.
*Engineer, Master in National Defense.
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#challenge #Armed #Forces #secular #State
