The president wants to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. The secretary of that department says this will promote a warrior culture, sending a signal to friends and foes that the U.S. military means business.  

As National Guard troops patrol Washington, D.C., and may soon be sent to Chicago, recruitment for the guard is falling. As food stamps are being cut and Medicaid is to be trimmed, just where will healthy and motivated recruits come from in the years to come?

The Arsenal of Democracy may soon be seen as another arsenal of autocracy, not exactly a comfort to our NATO allies — and will they still consider the U.S. a trusted ally? Is this all just another demonstration of bravery by the bone spur draft dodger?

While the DOD is already the DOW online, it will take millions of taxpayer dollars to rebrand the department: signs, stationery, etc. There may be better ways to spend that money, such as reviving the Voice of America, resuscitating the U.S. Agency for International Development, restoring research funding to universities, and so forth.

I ask these questions with a certain sense of irony, because my parents met during World War II in the Pentagon office of Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy. A year or so later, Mr. McCloy became my godfather.

I doubt that he objected to President Harry Truman’s 1949 decision to change the original name from “War” to “Defense.”

Edward Walworth, MD
Lewiston