Armed Forces and Society sent me the memoria for Morris Janowitz, Charles Moskos, and Samuel Huntington in the order of their passing. Ironically, Moskos wrote the memoriam on Janowitz.

I have been an IUS fellow for many years and at 75 had the rare distinction of knowing all of them well, Janowitz as an undergraduate senior at the University of Michigan and later as a friend and colleague, Moskos as a great friend and colleague of my age and finally Huntington as a colleague and mentor.

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Morris Janowitz

They were all giants in the field. Janowitz, who founded "military sociology" or as he preferred as a sociologist "armed forces and society." Moskos, a pioneering "field sociologist" an ex GI himself went into some dangerous areas to meet the troops, interact with them, and chronicle their experiences in "The American Enlisted Man". Huntington, a political scientist, who was one of the great seminal thinkers of our time, was often attacked as those who write on public policy often are but courageous and innovative.

I first met Morris as a second semester senior at the University of Michigan in spring, 1956 in a course called "Mass Communications" (Soc 177). We were required to do a content analysis of a community newspaper, in my case as a Chicagoan "The Southtown Economist" from my beloved south side. I felt privileged to receive a "B". Morris was thorough, tough, the complete professional. I later read "The Professional Soldier" which was, as Moskos noted incisive and courageous for its time. The study of the military was not consider academically and intellectually suitable, "off limitsI" when Morris wrote it.

He later helped me receive my first sabbatical in fall, 1977 when I spent time in my old "hood", the University of Chicago. I attended seminars there and he became a close personal friend. I recall that when I returned from a "post doc" at Harvard Morris in that off handed way of his said that "I see that you have taken my advice". Coming from Morris that was high praise indeed!

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Charles Moskos

Moskos was my contemporary. He received his A.B.from Princeton in 1956 at the same time that I graduated from Michigan. I cannot restate Jim Burks' superb encomium to Charlie, both academically succinct and terse but with warm reminiscences from Charlie’s boyhood in Albuquerque, a town that I visited a couple of years ago. I would add that his Greek background added a touch of universality to him. I have a young Greek colleague and we agree: "the gods and goddeses on Mt. Olympus have imbued him!". She knows of Charlie's work and is proud of their common heritage.

Charlie thought and advocated that the military should be far more representative of American society than it has become over time with the advent of the "Total Force" and the all volunteer military. Consequently,he consistently advocated a return to conscription, "the draft" whose existence influenced our career decisions in those days between Korea and Vietnam, Charlie as a draftee, I as a recalled reservist in the 1961 Berlin crisis. He also originated the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in regard to homosexuals in the armed forces. I heard him get into a heated argument in Chicago one night on that topic. Charlie would mix his erudition with sharp, wry wit. He asked that "don't ask, don't tell" be inscribed on his tombstone. He never turned personal disagreements into personal vendettas.

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Samuel Huntington

Finally, Samuel Huntington, the last of the founding greats and the only fellow political scientist. Peter Feaver was one of Sam's graduate students noted his professional accomplishments, the incisive and catholic nature of his scholarship, and what can be only described as his architechtonic mastery of the field, not a dry scholarship by any means but probing and pathbreaking. People have criticized "The Soldier and the State" since it was first published. Carl Friedrich, a Harvard colleague and German said that Huntington advocated what he opposed all of his life, an implied flattering comparison of military models to civilian ones.

I met Sam as the first recipient of the Richard B. Welch fellowship at the (then) Center for International Affairs and the (then) Russian Research Center at Harvard. Sam was very, very tough, a hard taskmaster. I likened him to a squirrel leaping out at you in a seminar. Ironically, Moskos visited Sam at Harvard in the fall of 1982 when I was there in 1982-82. I will never forget his council, advice, and friendship, a great scholar, teacher, and mentor. He served as the unofficial advisor for my second PhD!

I cherish their memories. All served in the U.S. military and were proud of it. They leave models of great scholarship and extraordinary citizenship.