The military has long been one of the greatest networking, mentor-protégé type organizations ever established. It only makes sense that good leaders seek to find the best leaders to serve under them and promote their protégés along the way as they themselves are promoted. However, when one’s mentor leaves the military and becomes a highly paid consultant or lobbyist for a company from which their branch of service buys billions of dollars’ worth of goods and services, it amplifies and validates this practice of “cashing-in” as an appropriate one. When that that mentor recruits his protégé to join him at corporate America when the protégé’s service expires, it only perpetuates the potential for corruption and adds to the ethical dilemma for the next generation of leaders.
That very little attention, much less regulation, has been focused on this problem speaks volumes to the respect Americans’ hold for their military leaders. Yet given the stunning statistics on the revolving door between the military and the industrial complex, Americans would be wise not to have their vision clouded by stars and stripes.
