Charles Moskos
Encyclopedia
Charles C. Moskos was a sociologist of the United States Military and a professor at Northwestern University
. Described as the nation's "most influential military sociologist" by the Wall Street Journal (where his byline occasionally appeared over op-ed pieces), Moskos had long been a source for reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times
, Chicago Tribune
, USA Today
and other periodicals. He was perhaps most well known as the author of the military's "don't ask, don't tell
" policy, which prohibits homosexual service members from acknowledging their sexual orientation.
, Illinois
to Greek immigrant parents from southern Albania
(Northern Epirus
). In his book Greek Americans: Struggle and Success (Transaction Publications, 2001) — which he jokingly called "his bestseller" bought only by Greek Americans — he recalls that his father, christened Photios, adopted the name Charles after pulling it out of a hat full of "slips with appropriately American
-sounding first names."
He met his German
wife Ilca, a Spanish
/German
foreign language teacher, while studying at the University of California, Los Angeles
. She recently retired from New Trier High School
where she taught foreign languages. He is survived by their two sons, Peter Moskos
, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
; Andrew Moskos, co-founder of Boom Chicago
in Amsterdam
; and his brother, Harry Moskos of Knoxville, Tennessee, the retired editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Charles Moskos wrote for many scholarly and popular publications. 1993, to help break an impasse between the Clinton administration and military leadership over the status of gays in the military, Moskos coined the compromise policy (and phrase) don't ask, don't tell
. Originally suggested as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Seek, Don't Flaunt" to Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman Senator Sam Nunn, it was eventually shortened to don't ask, don't tell
. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin approved the policy, and it was recommended to the President. In the following months, he worked with the White House, the Armed Forces and Senator Nunn's committee to draft the policy, which eventually was codified into law.
On May 31, 2008, Moskos died. His wife wrote: "Charles C. Moskos, of Santa Monica, Calif, formerly of Evanston, Ill, draftee of U.S. Army, died peacefully in his sleep after a valiant struggle with prostate cancer."
, where he graduated cum laude in 1956, on tuition scholarship and waited tables to pay for room and board. He was drafted into the US Army right after graduation in 1956. Moskos served as a draftee with the Army's combat engineers in Germany
where he wrote his first article, "Has the Army Killed Jim Crow?" for the Negro History Bulletin.
After leaving the military, he enrolled at UCLA
, where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in 1963. His first teaching job was at the University of Michigan
, but
he was soon lured away to Northwestern University
, where he was one of the most popular sociology professors in the school. "Students rush to his classes to hear enthralling lectures peppered with cheesy jokes and anecdotes," the Daily Northwestern recalled in a May 2008 editorial, written the month before his death. "They may be drawn by his famed don't-ask-don't-tell military policy, but they stick around to experience his grandfather-like interactions that make every student feel personally addressed."
Along with a number of other notable Greek Americans, he was a founding member of The Next Generation Initiative
, a leadership program aimed at getting students involved in public affairs.
He retired in 2003 and moved to Santa Monica, although he returned to Northwestern each fall to teach an introductory sociology course.
Of the course of his career, Moskos traveled to war-torn countries throughout the world. For research he visited American troops in Vietnam (1965 and 1967); the Dominican Republic (1966); Honduras (1984); Panama (1989); Saudi Arabia (1991); Somalia (1993); Haiti (1994); Macedonia (1995); Hungary (1996); Bosnia and the Serb Republic (1996 and 1998); Kosovo (2000); Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq (2003).
Non-American military visits include: United Nations Force in Cyprus (1969-70), Italian Army in Albania (1994), Greek Army in Bosnia (1998), British Army in Iraq (2003).
What Moskos called his "real fame" came when he coined the phrase "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and attached it to the controversial compromise policy he developed for the Clinton administration on gays in the military. The military's code of conduct prohibits homosexuality, but according to the policy, which is still in effect, the government cannot "ask" about an enlistee's sexual preferences, and homosexuals cannot "tell" military superiors they are gay.
Moskos also advocated restoring the military draft. He insisted that enforcing a shared military experience for Americans of different classes, races and economic backgrounds forged a sense of common purpose.
"This shared experience helped instill in those who served, as in the national culture generally, a sense of unity and moral seriousness that we would not see again -- until after September 11, 2001," he wrote in a November 2001 article in Washington Monthly (with Paul Glastris). "It's a shame that it has taken terrorist attacks to awaken us to the reality of our shared national fate."
Charles Moskos was a respected source for the military and the media and his influence in the military went very high. Military commanders such as Gen. James L. Jones
, the U.S. Marine Corps commandant, and Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan
, former U.S. Army chief of staff, regularly sought his advice. In 2005 Moskos completed a study for the Joint Chiefs of Staff
on international military cooperation.
He was author of several books, including "The American Enlisted Man," "The Military - More Than Just A Job?," "Soldiers and Sociologists," "The New Conscientious Objection," "A Call To Civic Service," and "Reporting War When There Is No War". He was also the author of "All That We Can Be: Black Leadership And Racial Integration The Army Way," which won the Washington Monthly award for the best political book of 1996. In addition, he published well over one hundred articles in scholarly journals and news publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Atlantic Monthly, and The New Republic; and his work has been translated into fourteen languages. He was a leading figure in the field of civil-military relations
. He was president of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society
(1989-1995) and Chair (1989-1997).
In addition, he was consulted by Presidents William J. Clinton and George H.W. Bush and testified before Congress on issues of military personnel policy several times. In 1992, he was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve on the President's Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Military. He was decorated by the governments of the United States , France and the Netherlands for his research and held the Distinguished Service Medal, the U.S. Army's highest decoration for a civilian.
Charles Moskos was a leader in the field of Civil-Military Relations
. He served as President (1989–1995) and Chair (1989–1997) of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society
.
argument, the most frequent rationale given for the continued exclusion of gay service members from the U.S. military. Instead he argued that since it was established that "modesty rights" require than women have separate bathrooms and showers, heterosexuals also had modesty rights:
Moskos's comments were met with outrage by gay activists and Northwestern University students who argued that his fear of being ogled in the shower was not sufficient justification for denying equal rights to gay men and lesbians. http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/27103.html http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/01/24/43d5caa5c2577
http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/4/1/41
http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/1/1/109
http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/377
http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/5/2/171
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
. Described as the nation's "most influential military sociologist" by the Wall Street Journal (where his byline occasionally appeared over op-ed pieces), Moskos had long been a source for reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
and other periodicals. He was perhaps most well known as the author of the military's "don't ask, don't tell
Don't ask, don't tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while...
" policy, which prohibits homosexual service members from acknowledging their sexual orientation.
Biography
Moskos was born May 20, 1934, in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
to Greek immigrant parents from southern Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
(Northern Epirus
Northern Epirus
Northern Epirus is a term used to refer to those parts of the historical region of Epirus, in the western Balkans, that are part of the modern Albania. The term is used mostly by Greeks and is associated with the existence of a substantial ethnic Greek population in the region...
). In his book Greek Americans: Struggle and Success (Transaction Publications, 2001) — which he jokingly called "his bestseller" bought only by Greek Americans — he recalls that his father, christened Photios, adopted the name Charles after pulling it out of a hat full of "slips with appropriately American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-sounding first names."
He met his German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
wife Ilca, a Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
/German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
foreign language teacher, while studying at the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
. She recently retired from New Trier High School
New Trier High School
New Trier High School is a public four-year high school , with its major campus located in Winnetka, Illinois, USA, and a second campus in Northfield, Illinois, with freshman classes and district administration...
where she taught foreign languages. He is survived by their two sons, Peter Moskos
Peter Moskos
Peter Moskos is a former Baltimore Police Department officer who is currently an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center in the Department of Sociology...
, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice is a senior college of the City University of New York in Midtown Manhattan, New York City and is the only liberal arts college with a criminal justice and forensic focus in the United States. The college offers programs in Forensic Science and Forensic...
; Andrew Moskos, co-founder of Boom Chicago
Boom Chicago
Boom Chicago is a creative group, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, that writes and performs sketch and improvisational comedy at the Leidseplein Theater...
in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
; and his brother, Harry Moskos of Knoxville, Tennessee, the retired editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Charles Moskos wrote for many scholarly and popular publications. 1993, to help break an impasse between the Clinton administration and military leadership over the status of gays in the military, Moskos coined the compromise policy (and phrase) don't ask, don't tell
Don't ask, don't tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while...
. Originally suggested as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Seek, Don't Flaunt" to Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman Senator Sam Nunn, it was eventually shortened to don't ask, don't tell
Don't ask, don't tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while...
. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin approved the policy, and it was recommended to the President. In the following months, he worked with the White House, the Armed Forces and Senator Nunn's committee to draft the policy, which eventually was codified into law.
On May 31, 2008, Moskos died. His wife wrote: "Charles C. Moskos, of Santa Monica, Calif, formerly of Evanston, Ill, draftee of U.S. Army, died peacefully in his sleep after a valiant struggle with prostate cancer."
Career
Charles Moskos attended Princeton UniversityPrinceton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, where he graduated cum laude in 1956, on tuition scholarship and waited tables to pay for room and board. He was drafted into the US Army right after graduation in 1956. Moskos served as a draftee with the Army's combat engineers in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
where he wrote his first article, "Has the Army Killed Jim Crow?" for the Negro History Bulletin.
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in 1963. His first teaching job was at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, but
he was soon lured away to Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, where he was one of the most popular sociology professors in the school. "Students rush to his classes to hear enthralling lectures peppered with cheesy jokes and anecdotes," the Daily Northwestern recalled in a May 2008 editorial, written the month before his death. "They may be drawn by his famed don't-ask-don't-tell military policy, but they stick around to experience his grandfather-like interactions that make every student feel personally addressed."
Along with a number of other notable Greek Americans, he was a founding member of The Next Generation Initiative
The Next Generation Initiative
The Next Generation Initiative is an independent non-profit educational foundation focused on helping students gain real-world skills and experience that will advance their education, and serve them as future leaders in their communities and in the broader public arena.The Initiative works with...
, a leadership program aimed at getting students involved in public affairs.
He retired in 2003 and moved to Santa Monica, although he returned to Northwestern each fall to teach an introductory sociology course.
Of the course of his career, Moskos traveled to war-torn countries throughout the world. For research he visited American troops in Vietnam (1965 and 1967); the Dominican Republic (1966); Honduras (1984); Panama (1989); Saudi Arabia (1991); Somalia (1993); Haiti (1994); Macedonia (1995); Hungary (1996); Bosnia and the Serb Republic (1996 and 1998); Kosovo (2000); Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq (2003).
Non-American military visits include: United Nations Force in Cyprus (1969-70), Italian Army in Albania (1994), Greek Army in Bosnia (1998), British Army in Iraq (2003).
What Moskos called his "real fame" came when he coined the phrase "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and attached it to the controversial compromise policy he developed for the Clinton administration on gays in the military. The military's code of conduct prohibits homosexuality, but according to the policy, which is still in effect, the government cannot "ask" about an enlistee's sexual preferences, and homosexuals cannot "tell" military superiors they are gay.
Moskos also advocated restoring the military draft. He insisted that enforcing a shared military experience for Americans of different classes, races and economic backgrounds forged a sense of common purpose.
"This shared experience helped instill in those who served, as in the national culture generally, a sense of unity and moral seriousness that we would not see again -- until after September 11, 2001," he wrote in a November 2001 article in Washington Monthly (with Paul Glastris). "It's a shame that it has taken terrorist attacks to awaken us to the reality of our shared national fate."
Charles Moskos was a respected source for the military and the media and his influence in the military went very high. Military commanders such as Gen. James L. Jones
James L. Jones
James Logan Jones, Jr. is the former United States National Security Advisor and a retired United States Marine Corps General....
, the U.S. Marine Corps commandant, and Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan
Gordon R. Sullivan
General Gordon Russell Sullivan is a retired Army general officer, who served as the 32nd Chief of Staff of the United States Army and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.-Background and education:...
, former U.S. Army chief of staff, regularly sought his advice. In 2005 Moskos completed a study for the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
on international military cooperation.
He was author of several books, including "The American Enlisted Man," "The Military - More Than Just A Job?," "Soldiers and Sociologists," "The New Conscientious Objection," "A Call To Civic Service," and "Reporting War When There Is No War". He was also the author of "All That We Can Be: Black Leadership And Racial Integration The Army Way," which won the Washington Monthly award for the best political book of 1996. In addition, he published well over one hundred articles in scholarly journals and news publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Atlantic Monthly, and The New Republic; and his work has been translated into fourteen languages. He was a leading figure in the field of civil-military relations
Civil-military relations
Civil–military relations describes the relationship between civil society as a whole and the military organization or organizations established to protect it. More narrowly, it describes the relationship between the civil authority of a given society and its military authority...
. He was president of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society
Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society
The Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society ' is a professional organization and forum for the exchange and evaluation of research on military institutions, civil-military relations, and military sociology with a broad emphasis across the social and behavioral sciences...
(1989-1995) and Chair (1989-1997).
In addition, he was consulted by Presidents William J. Clinton and George H.W. Bush and testified before Congress on issues of military personnel policy several times. In 1992, he was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve on the President's Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Military. He was decorated by the governments of the United States , France and the Netherlands for his research and held the Distinguished Service Medal, the U.S. Army's highest decoration for a civilian.
Charles Moskos was a leader in the field of Civil-Military Relations
Civil-military relations
Civil–military relations describes the relationship between civil society as a whole and the military organization or organizations established to protect it. More narrowly, it describes the relationship between the civil authority of a given society and its military authority...
. He served as President (1989–1995) and Chair (1989–1997) of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society
Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society
The Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society ' is a professional organization and forum for the exchange and evaluation of research on military institutions, civil-military relations, and military sociology with a broad emphasis across the social and behavioral sciences...
.
Controversy
In 2000, Moskos told academic journal Lingua Franca that he felt the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy will be gone within five to ten years. He went on to debunk the unit cohesionUnit cohesion
Unit cohesion is a military concept, defined by one former United States Chief of staff in the early 1980s as "the bonding together of soldiers in such a way as to sustain their will and commitment to each other, the unit, and mission accomplishment, despite combat or mission stress"...
argument, the most frequent rationale given for the continued exclusion of gay service members from the U.S. military. Instead he argued that since it was established that "modesty rights" require than women have separate bathrooms and showers, heterosexuals also had modesty rights:
- "I should not be forced to shower with a woman. I should not be forced to shower with a gay ."
Moskos's comments were met with outrage by gay activists and Northwestern University students who argued that his fear of being ogled in the shower was not sufficient justification for denying equal rights to gay men and lesbians. http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/27103.html http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/01/24/43d5caa5c2577
External links
- Northwestern University
- American Forces Press Service
- Personal Web Site
- Lecture at DePauw University, September 30, 2004
- Interview at the Pritzker Military LibraryPritzker Military LibraryThe Pritzker Military Library is a research library for the study of military history in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded in 2003 by COL James N. Pritzker, IL ARNG to be a non-partisan institution for the study of "the citizen soldier as an essential element for the preservation of...
- http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/charlie_moskos.php
Further reading
- Moskos, Charles, Jr.. 1977. “From Institutions to Occupation: Trends in Military Organization.” Armed Forces & SocietyArmed Forces & SocietyArmed Forces & Society is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews on civil–military relations, military sociology, military institutions, conflict management, arms control, peacekeeping, conflict resolution, military contracting, terrorism, and...
, vol. 4: pp. 41-50.
http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/4/1/41
- Morris JanowitzMorris JanowitzMorris Janowitz, was an American sociologist and professor who made major contributions to sociological theory, the study of prejudice, urban issues, and patriotism. He was one of the founders of military sociology and made major contributions, along with Samuel Huntington, to the establishment of...
and Charles C. Moskos, Jr. 1974. “Racial Composition in the All-Volunteer Force.” Armed Forces & SocietyArmed Forces & SocietyArmed Forces & Society is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews on civil–military relations, military sociology, military institutions, conflict management, arms control, peacekeeping, conflict resolution, military contracting, terrorism, and...
, vol. 1: pp. 109-123.
http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/1/1/109
- Moskos, Charles, Jr. 1986. “Institutional/Occupational Trends in Armed Forces: An Update.” Armed Forces & SocietyArmed Forces & SocietyArmed Forces & Society is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews on civil–military relations, military sociology, military institutions, conflict management, arms control, peacekeeping, conflict resolution, military contracting, terrorism, and...
, vol. 12: pp. 377-382.
http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/377
- Morris JanowitzMorris JanowitzMorris Janowitz, was an American sociologist and professor who made major contributions to sociological theory, the study of prejudice, urban issues, and patriotism. He was one of the founders of military sociology and made major contributions, along with Samuel Huntington, to the establishment of...
and Charles C. Moskos, Jr.1979. “Five Years of the All-Volunteer Force: 1973-1978.” Armed Forces & SocietyArmed Forces & SocietyArmed Forces & Society is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews on civil–military relations, military sociology, military institutions, conflict management, arms control, peacekeeping, conflict resolution, military contracting, terrorism, and...
, vol. 5: pp. 171-218.
http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/5/2/171