Officers Keep Out

The Navy rule had always been: no talk of women, politics or religion in the wardroom. But for two years now, Annapolis midshipmen had been sponsoring something called the Wardroom Panel, where such guests as Navy critic Rear Admiral (ret.) Ellis M. Zacharias, Columnist Frank Kent, Lieut. General Albert C. Wedemeyer and Lord Inverchapel could damn the torpedoes or anything else they pleased. Some did and some didn't. Last week Cartoonist-Author Bill Mauldin, who used to be an Army enlisted man himself, stood up front. As usual, no officers were invited, but a record 1,200 midshipmen turned out.

An army and navy, said young (26) Bill Mauldin, "as instruments of foreign policy, are temporarily necessary"--but the thing to work for is a stronger United Nations and then world federalism. In the meantime, thought Mauldin, he could suggest a few improvements in the services.

Said he: "Somewhere along the line I've gained the reputation of hating officers. I don't. Some of my best friends are officers. But the assumption that officers are gentlemen and enlisted men are peas ants is a hangover from the Middle Ages. The caste system makes it a degrading and humiliating thing to be an enlisted man, and it shouldn't be." Mauldin wanted courts-martial composed 50-50 of officers and enlisted men, thought that officers should serve in the ranks first.

Mauldin's remarks, which would surprise no readers of his Up Front but did not exactly follow the Annapolis line, brought enthusiastic applause. His audience knew what he was talking about: of 2,815 midshipmen at the postwar Academy, 54% have done time as enlisted men.*

* A current Annapolis anecdote concerns an unreconstructed first-classman (senior) who hazed an ex-paratrooper plebe, told him: "Mr. So-&-So, this Academy will make a man of you yet." Replied the plebe evenly: "Mac, I've killed better men than you."

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