European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 8, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday aprils 1992 the stars and stripes a Page 13 Anthony i Wise need builder. Commentary not wrecker like Brown 2.ffamul this is a year of anger in politics. Voters Are angry at economic misery at politicians who give themselves Perks at institutions that do not work. They Are in a mood to punish to destroy. Jerry Brown fits that mood. Like Savonarola an italian Monk and religious and political reformer who was burned at the stake for heresy Brown acts As if he would purge an impure system. And if there is a real Jerry Brown underneath the various political masks it May be something like that Savonarola. As governor of California he was a wrecker of institutions. The University of California the courts the mental hospitals a institutions in which the state had taken great Pride a were savaged by Brown. All in the name of profound rethinking and without regard for the human Cost. Stanley Sheinbaum an outstanding Liberal Democrat was named to the University of California Board of regents by Brown and served for 12 years. He remains a a grateful for the appointment he said but his memories of what Brown did to the University Are not Happy. A the had a disrespect for the University a Sheinbaum said. A the was very rough on the budget and not just for Lack of Money. He virtually eliminated Extension courses with the comment a Why have courses for housewives a a i visited the University of California during the Brown years doing some teaching and found that faculty Ana staff members thought Brown so contemptuous of the University that they pined for his predecessor As governor Ronald Reagan. They thought they were treated More fairly and More straightforwardly by Reagan. A the president of the University tried to get an appointment with governor Brown for weeks to discuss the financial crisis a Sheinbaum said. A finally he was told he could see him late at night just before the governor submitted his budget. When he got there he found that the governor had two students there to take part in the  Brown left five or six vacancies on the Board of regents unfilled for an extended time Sheinbaum said adding a it crippled  Brown did that with Many state boards Ana agencies saying that he was rethinking their functions. Brown Cut funds for mental hospitals and let conditions in them get so bad that the hospitals were de certified and Federal funding was Cut Oft. Interviewing him in 1978,1 asked him Why he had done that. A i was not confident that i understood the program a he said. A a in be had some doubts about the role of psychiatry and the approach in mental  one May Well have intellectual doubts about the treatment of mental illness. But for a governor to let patients go hungry dirty and neglected while he mulls those doubts is something else. The institution the institution that suffered most from the Brown years i think was the supreme court of California. Brown made some Good appointments. But he made one fatal one Rose Bird one of his assistants As chief Justice. Rose Bird was a thoughtful and decent person with modest experience in the Law. She might have been an appropriate Choice As a lower court judge. For chief Justice of California she was completely inappropriate. Lawyers and judges took the appointment to be an expression of Browne a contempt for the Law. The end of the Rose Bird Story was terrible for her and for the state supreme court. Right Wing forces started a Campaign that ended with voters removing her and two respected colleagues from the court and with its once High reputation among state courts degraded. In times of stress there May always be an urge to destroy institutions to purify and Start Over. Think of the 1960s. But is that what the United states needs today the Reagan and Bush years have seen the weakening of our constitutional institutions. The Federal courts have been stacked with ideological zealots government agencies with people who do not believe in their missions. The need is not to destroy but to restore. Consider just one thing the president s Power to name supreme court justices for me his single most important duty. Would we want those appointments to be made by Jerry Brown c the now York times Harry g. Summers . Courts disaster by trimming reserves a those who cannot remember the past a wrote the Spanish philosopher George Santayana in 1906, a Are condemned to repeat  it is an adage often quoted and even More often ignored. With the recent announcement by defense Secretary Dick Cheney of an Mitial 1992-93 Cut of some 830 units and almost 140,000 men and women from americans military reserves a the army and air Force National guard and the reserves of the army Navy air Force and marines a a we May be on the verge of doing it yet again. A the National guard and reserves Are invaluable National assets a he said a but we Are cutting the size of the entire military Force both Active duty and  by 1997, another 100,000 will be Cut from the reserves reducing their Overall size by some 25 percent almost the same percentage As the reductions currently under Way in the Active forces. A the National guard and reserves will play an absolutely vital part in future strategy Cheney emphasized noting that the proportion of Active duty forces 64 percent to reserves 36 percent will remain the same. But these statistics mask an important shift in the philosophy undergirding the total Force concept that grew out of the Vietnam War. A we. Need Active forces when we Are talking about combined arms forces. That go in harms Way with the greatest likelihood of sustaining casualties a said the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Gen. Colin l. Powell. A for that kind of proficiency. You need Active units that Are Able to train for combat Day in and Day out All year  while Powell a premise is arguably True when it comes to army Man Euver units that is front line infantry Armor and cavalry uni sit is dangerously similar to the arguments used at the height of the cold War to justify neglecting the Reserve forces in favor of a Large Active Force. A if they can to get there in 90 Days a ran the argument a we done to need  a but what happens on the 91st Day a asked Gen. John w. Vessey jr., who was passed Over for promotion to his second Star for asking such an embarrassing question. A former Minnesota National guard first sergeant who won a Battlefield commission at the Anzio beachhead in world War ii Vessey  shut up. When his question was finally addressed the Reserve was found to be in such disarray that the Only options open after 90 Days were surrender or nuclear War. Vessey who Rose to four stars and appointment As chairman of the joint chiefs helped set in motion the mobilization machinery that paid off so handsomely in the persian Gulf War when the Reserve forces As they had in every american War save Vietnam literally made Victory possible. Cheney acknowledged that Reserve forces representing some 20 percent of . Military forces deployed to the Gulf performed magnificently in the War. But there is More to the reserves than their purely military capability As then army chief of staff Gen. Creighton w. Abrams recognized when he established the total army concept in 1972, melding Active and Reserve components into a cohesive whole. By incorporating Reserve combat brigades into Active army divisions Abrams sought to eliminate the disastrous Vietnam War fallacy that wars could be fought a in cold blood without paying the political Price of National mobilization. It was precisely what Many saw As the reserves greatest weakness a their political sensitivity a that Abrams recognized As their greatest strength. Unlike the draft which had degenerated into a National disgrace the Reserve forces he believed represented the True Bridge Between the Active Force and the american people. The persian Gulf War proved him exactly Correct. As Gen. Crosbie e. Saint commented a the Early decision to Call up the reserves. Turned out to be a major catalyst in consolidating american Public opinion firmly behind our strategy in the Gulf. The size of the Call up meant that everyone had players from their state. The moral Ascendancy that . Troops had when they knew their country was behind them cannot be  a in War a Napoleon said a the morale is to the material As three to  cutting the size of the reserves to reflect Post cold War realities is one thing. Cutting their role in providing for the common defense so As to avoid the perils and problems of mobilization is quite another. If we fail to remember that major lesson of the Vietnam War we will surely once again reap the disastrous consequences. A lecturer in strategy and a distinguished fellow at the army War College. Coi Summers is the author of the re Conoy published on strategy ii a critical analysis of the persian quit War c los Angelos times Syndicate