Charles Moskos - Career

Career

His first teaching job was at the University of Michigan, but he was soon recruited to Northwestern University, where he was one of the most popular sociology professors in the school. "Students rush to his classes to hear enthralling lectures peppered with cheesy jokes and anecdotes," the Daily Northwestern recalled in a May 2008 editorial, written the month before his death. "They may be drawn by his famed don't-ask-don't-tell military policy, but they stick around to experience his grandfather-like interactions that make every student feel personally addressed."

Along with a number of other notable Greek Americans, he was a founding member of the Next Generation Initiative, a leadership program aimed at getting students involved in public affairs.

Moskos took many research trips to war-torn countries. He visited American troops in Vietnam (1965 and 1967); the Dominican Republic (1966); Honduras (1984); Panama (1989); Saudi Arabia (1991); Somalia (1993); Haiti (1994); Macedonia (1995); Hungary (1996); Bosnia and the Serb Republic (1996 and 1998); Kosovo (2000); Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq (2003). Non-American military visits include: United Nations Force in Cyprus (1969–70), Italian Army in Albania (1994), Greek Army in Bosnia (1998), British Army in Iraq (2003).

Moskos also advocated restoring the military draft. He insisted that enforcing a shared military experience for Americans of different classes, races and economic backgrounds forged a sense of common purpose. "This shared experience helped instill in those who served, as in the national culture generally, a sense of unity and moral seriousness that we would not see again -- until after September 11, 2001," he wrote in a November 2001 article in Washington Monthly (with Paul Glastris). "It's a shame that it has taken terrorist attacks to awaken us to the reality of our shared national fate."

Charles Moskos was a respected source for the military and the media and his influence in the military went very high. Military commanders such as Gen. James L. Jones, the U.S. Marine Corps commandant, and Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, former U.S. Army chief of staff, regularly sought his advice. In 2005 Moskos completed a study for the Joint Chiefs of Staff on international military cooperation.

He was author of several books, including The American Enlisted Man, The Military - More Than Just A Job?, Soldiers and Sociologists, The New Conscientious Objection, A Call To Civic Service, and Reporting War When There Is No War. He was also the author of All That We Can Be: Black Leadership And Racial Integration The Army Way, which won the Washington Monthly award for the best political book of 1996. In addition, he published well over one hundred articles in scholarly journals and news publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Atlantic Monthly, and the New Republic. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. He was a leading figure in the field of civil-military relations. He was president of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (1989–1995) and Chair (1989–1997).

In addition, he was consulted by Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush and testified before Congress on issues of military personnel policy several times. In 1992, he was appointed by Bush to serve on the President's Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Military. He was decorated by the governments of the United States, France, and the Netherlands for his research and held the Distinguished Service Medal, the U.S. Army's highest decoration for a civilian. He served as President (1989–1995) and Chair (1989–1997) of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society.