Javier Saldaña Sagredo
Army Colonel (R)
We have perceived it during the last few days. Part of the Spanish society, of the citizenry as it is now called when talking about political issues, is not able to turn the page. Some sectors continue to hold their hands up to their heads when a professional of the military occupies positions of high political responsibility. After almost fifty years, either the military is still distrusted as public servants or they are still considered as a separate caste that should only remain in the barracks, even after their retirement.
The servicepeople has changed a lot since the advent of democracy. They have been able to adapt to social and political change despite the trauma of 23F, which, by the way, and it must be said, the consequences were not only for those involved but also for the rest of the Institution; an Institution that, since then, has had to permanently demonstrate its commitment and involvement with the values inherent to our Democracy. A Democracy that has not perceived that it is precisely those values, on which the Militia bases its actions, which place the servicepeople as a public servant par excellence. Values such as loyalty, the spirit of sacrifice, abnegation, comradeship or love for Spain are the constant in the daily work of the military that in most of the times is extended to his own social behavior. Values that ultimately make him flee from the ephemeral and material against the current of the social dynamics in which we live.
It is true that, in our country, the military is not the only profession that bases its performance on the intrinsic values of the human being, fortunately there are many others, but it is probably the only one whose work has been more appreciated abroad where it has had to build its prestige in Peace Operations. With few resources, our Armed Forces have had to keep up with other armies of our neighboring countries for years, demonstrating outside our borders what they have been prevented from demonstrating inside. Until twenty years ago, when the UME appeared, which undoubtedly catapulted it to become one of the most valued Institutions in society, its use was practically limited to the international commitments that our country had signed.
It seemed as if its use on national territory was a taboo issue, especially after the 23F, which it undoubtedly boosted. Nothing to do with the employment of other Armed Forces in counter-terrorist missions in countries such as the United Kingdom (operation Banner in 1969, during the operations in Ulster) or France (operation Sentinelle in 2015, after the Bataclan attacks). It was particularly significant that the tasks carried out by our SAF in the context of the counter-terrorist struggle in the lead years always remained in the background. In fact, their actions throughout the conflict were gradually decreasing, going from a permanent presence in border sealing tasks to much more testimonial tasks such as the surveillance of train tracks or occasional security of some energy facilities and almost always under the “technical direction” of the Guardia Civil. The truth is that this was established in the National Defense Law of 2005 in Article 16.C to dispel any doubts. However, outside our borders, the situation was different in countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan where our Armed Forces were fully employed in counterinsurgency operations for many years.
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that, despite the fact that the Armed Forces are one of the most highly valued institutions in society, the military is still largely unknown in society. Collectively, its components may have a high social consideration, but individually, society does not know them. I explain: they do not know who their leaders are, how they work, how they are trained, what their professional career model is or what their working conditions are and, therefore, they do not know if their capabilities as public servants can be “exported” to other sectors outside the military.
Servicemen and positions of political responsibility
In the recent history of our country, servicepeople is hardly exposed in the social media beyond the appearances of the EMU. The servicepeople have not had the opportunity to demonstrate their potential for the benefit of society beyond their professional occupation, which is why many continue to shake their heads when a military professional is appointed to positions of high political responsibility. That is why some social sectors strongly criticize appointments such as the one recently made to the Vice-Presidency for the Recovery after the DANA in the Government of the Valencian Community.
It is based on an erroneous idea, widely entrenched in society and that biases reality, whereby political activity seems to be restricted to the servicepeople. However, and even before reaching the situation of Retirement by which he recovers all his rights that the military career has “frozen”, the servicepeople can choose to apply for the Leave of Absence or the passage to the situation of Special Services by which he is allowed to be designated as a candidate in elections or elected or chosen to hold positions or positions in the Public Administration and / or judicial, etc.. All this without renouncing his status as a member of the Military, to which he may return, as of right, at the end of his responsibilities in these situations.
However, as we have seen, in many areas of society the participation of the servicepeople in political tasks is not understood. For many years, certain social sectors have been busy spreading a certain historiography of the military, alien to the social reality and insensitive to its problems. The servicepeople have not enjoyed the benefit of the doubt that other groups of civil servants have had when it comes to their involvement in political tasks. They have been cornered with certain frequency within a specific social space inevitably associated with a certain political thinking above their own scale of values.
Values that in spite of everything have nourished the cohesion of the Armed Forces against the attempts of internal division favoring an associationism of horizontal cut by hierarchical levels that prioritizes more the comparison and confrontation of the rights of each of the groups than those of the whole Institution as a whole. Values such as loyalty, which is difficult to understand in the battlefield of the political chessboard, and which is in essence the key to the very internal functioning of the Institution. Values, in short, such as discipline, which has served, however, so that the politician who has reached the Ministry has come to understand the breadth of its meaning by having under his orders a collective that bases its day-to-day actions on it.
The servicepeople has no political aspirations, but in part of Spanish society there still persists a feeling that they should be isolated from any other public service than that of the armed forces. For an military officer in public office, politics will always be far removed from his administrative management. That is what the new Vice President for the Recovery after the DANA of the Valencian Community has claimed. Let us not see his appointment as a failure of the political class that has not been able to find a figure in line with the challenges of the new position, let us see it as a contribution, an integration, an approach to public service to the social common good of a collective, the military, unfairly treated in many by a part of their compatriots.
