When I say things like “social programs” and “government aid,” what types of programs pop up in your mind? Well, quite often, and especially for those on the right, the first word that erupts in flashing strobe lights is “welfare,”  followed quickly by — gasp — “socialism!” And often, those terms and the ideas behind them are viewed by my Republican friends as yet another example of the government doing too much for people who do too little for themselves. “Real” Americans, they argue, are people who stand on their own two feet and take care of themselves. 

Which, of course, brings me to the OB/GYN doctors at F.E. Warren Air Force Base back in 1984…

Back then I was near the beginnings of my eventual 25-plus year military career, stationed at that lovely base outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming as a “finger on the button” type, an ICBM launch officer. And in the summer of that year, my late first wife and I were expecting our first child. We received excellent medical care from both of the OB/GYN docs assigned to the base. During the very long labor before our child finally arrived, I recall chatting with the doc about what it was like to be a women’s and baby doc in Cheyenne. She told me that the reason there were two OB/GYNs at Warren was not because of the base population, which would only have required a single such doctor, but rather because of the critical shortage of OB/GYN docs in Wyoming at that time. It seems that high malpractice insurance rates — and OB/GYNs traditionally have the highest of all such rates — had reduced the number of civilian practitioners so low that the DOD kept an extra doc or two around at Warren so they could help out in the civilian community from time to time when a crisis popped up. 

Which, of course, now brings me to a recent Colorado Politics story, in which we learned that the Colorado National Guard and other military resources will soon be training to fight this coming fire season’s expected high number of blazes. Lots of helicopters and other aircraft will be flying around the Denver metro area. This is a good thing, but it reminds me once again of what I used to say that shocked my cadet students back when I was teaching poli sci at the AF Academy — the DoD is the nation’s largest social welfare agency. And if that is true, wow, can the word “socialism” be far behind? Won’t someone think of the children? 

I’ve often written about the GOP’s silly attempts to make the word “socialism” some kind of devil worship. It is hypocritical, of course, but that’s mostly what today’s national GOP is all about, but I digress…

When teaching American defense policy, the cadets usually understood what is traditionally thought of as the role of the military, and what makes it unique when compared to all other occupations: the military’s fundamental job is to blow things up and kill people, when necessary. My time as an ICBM launch officer was most certainly about defending the nation, through the threat of massive and deadly retaliation to any enemy attack.

But then I’d also tell my students about the military’s role as a welfare agency. I would mention things like the military’s responding to natural disasters. I would mention the stationing of CH-47 Chinook helicopters at Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs. While they had a direct military role, these heavy-lift aircraft also spent quite a bit of time flying high mountain rescue missions here in Colorado, in areas and conditions in which few, if any, civilian choppers could operate. Carson also deployed bulldozers and other heavy equipment to support efforts to fight the Waldo Canyon fire. Heck, the military is even being used to aid in the vaccine rollout.

The military’s socialism extends to communities. When the then-largest-on-record thunderstorm blasted Cheyenne back in 1985, a bunch of us military types were on the city streets the next day offering help to the hardest hit areas. And my current city, Colorado Springs, is heavily reliant on the income generated by the multiple military facilities located here. 

So, whether it is keeping an extra doctor or two around in Cheyenne or in fighting wild fires in Colorado, the military’s role in our society has often gone far beyond traditional military operations. Be it the money that is injected into local economies or be it the actual use of military hardware to fight fires, the DoD has long since crossed the Rubicon, but has done so not to conquer, but to assist. Be it the National Guard, the Coast Guard saving people in sinking boats, or a military doctor helping deliver civilian babies, the role of the military in the United States and in Colorado is far more than just being ready to blow things up and kill people. 

And we, as a state and as a nation, are the better for it.