There is a gap in our national conversation when it comes to national security issues. Strip away the 24-hr news cycle and the hot topic of the day, that isn’t the conversation I am referring to.

The gap we have is one that has been growing for over a half a decade as the war and those fighting it on the front lines have faded not just in numbers, but as part of what the citizens are talking about among themselves and what the sources they get their information from dedicate less time to covering.

This fade has a variety of sources. Part is the very real reduction in fighting forces on the ground. Part is a war weariness in some quarters of our nation. Some is that we have been at war for so long, it has simply become part of the background noise.

A large percentage of it, I would argue, is coming from a retreat from those in leadership willing to engage on the topic either by desire or by direction. It is well known that national security and defense issues are not President Obama’s preferred areas he wants to invest his time and political capital. His Secretary of Defense is a quiet yet effective technocrat. When you look to the Service Secretaries, take a moment to think what you have heard from them as of late.

Let’s start close to home and do a news.google search for Secretary of the Navy Mabus and limit it for what comes up in the last month.

• A Harvard Law lecture where he talked about his efforts to reduce DON carbon emissions and combat sexual abuse.
• A meeting with the Zambian President.
• Announced the first director of unmanned systems (OPNAV N99).
• Announced that feminist and founder of the Navy’s latest endorsed sociopolitical fad, “Lean In Circles.” as sponsor of our next submarine, USS MASSACHUSETTS (SSN-798).

If you are a seapower advocate, that should give you some pause when you wonder how we fight “sea blindness” and all that comes with it – not to mention the larger issue of keeping the American people informed and inspired.

As sense of disinterest at the top can, naturally if let to settle, filter down. There are multiple indicators that it is filtering down, and has been for awhile.

Via MilitaryTimes’ Hope Hodge Seck’s survey of last year;

“that the mission mattered more to the military than to the civilian,” said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who studies the military. “For the civilian world, it might have been easier to psychologically move on and say, ‘Well, we are cutting our losses.’ But the military feels very differently. Those losses have names and faces attached to [them].

Troops say morale has sharply declined over the last five years, and most of those in uniform today believe their quality of life will only get worse. Compared to 2009, more are unhappy with their pay and health care, and very few trust that senior leaders fully support them. A closer look at what’s driving this trend:”

That is the feeling of many who are serving now. No small part of this is hearing, and being told again and again – why they are doing what they are doing – and even more important, that their fellow citizens know. A lot of focus has been on retaining “our best” via new tools, but this general feeling of drift and fading presence may be impacting attracting “the best” to our service academies.

Of colleges with decreasing applications for enrollment, #14 is the Naval Academy, and #2 is the Air Force Academy. There are a complex reasons for both that are not helped by sustained internal efforts to tarnish their brand with constant public posturing on sexual abuse, social issues unrelated to the mission and even micro-aggressions and safe spaces. Regardless of the cause, these are two more data points along a trend.

We have all been in commands where the Commanding Officer, however good he is in one area or another, has some areas that he just isn’t that good in. Perhaps it isn’t an area of interest, natural skill, or simply an oversight. In such cases, what does the XO, CMC, and the rest of the command do? Ignore it? No. They compensate for it as best as they can. They reinforce their CO’s weak areas through their own efforts and carry out the plan of the day.

If you are not happy with your civilian neighbors’ and friends’ understanding of the national security situation; if you are not happy with the image the press and media culture gives of those who have served; if you are not happy with the lack of a military point of view in the public arena – then do something about it. Support your leaders getting more involved, and if they won’t then do it yourself.

We cannot complain of a civil military gap or a frustration with friends and neighbors who don’t know a bomber from a boomer, Syria from Sri Lanka, if we have not made the effort to do our part to fill the gap.

If you have a skill to write, there is a venue for all skill levels to engage – from the swamps we blogg’rs hang out in, to fruited plains of online journals, to the heights of publication on dead tree. If you are comfortable on the stage with a microphone in hand – there are organizations all around who are looking for speakers. If you are part of organizations from networking groups to hobby clubs, join their leadership team.

Think no one is talking about military related issues? Be that voice. Think that veterans are invisible to the general public? Slap your mini-warfare device on your lapel and be that presence.

If you refuse to be that voice, and refuse to move from the shadows – then accept where we are and where we are drifting, as you are not participating in civil society, you are subject to it.

Get involved. Write. Say “yes” to the invitation. Go on the talk show. Engage in the conversation. Support what is good and correct, oppose what is not.

Just engage.

No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.

Horatio Nelson