On October 26, 1945, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9646, redesigning the presidential seal. Among other changes, he proposed that the eagle should face away from the arrows, signifying armed conflict, in its left talon, to demonstrate a desire to avoid war.
The first President to have a seal was Woodrow Wilson. Prior to his administration, the Army and the Navy had separate flags for the President in his role as Commander-in-Chief. Future president Franklin Roosevelt, who was then Assistant Secretary to the Navy, designed a presidential flag containing a precursor to the modern presidential seal which would be suitable for use by both the Army and the Navy; it consisted of a presidential coat of arms (seal) on a blue field with a white star in each corner. The central imagery is based on the Great Seal of the United States, which was originally designed in 1782 by Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress. Notably, the eagle (as symbol of the United States) faced left toward the arrows gripped in its left talon.
Truman’s Executive Order made several changes to the coat of arms (presidential seal). A circle of 48 stars replaced the white star in each corner signifying the President was not only the Commander-in-Chief of the military, but a representative of all the people in the 48 states (at the time); two more stars were later added to the circle when Hawaii and Alaska were admitted to the union.
Most significantly, the eagle’s head was turned to the right facing the olive branch in its right talon symbolizing America as a nation that seeks peace not war.
Under Truman, who fought as a soldier in World War One and bore the responsibility as Commander-in-Chief of dropping the nuclear bombs on Japan to hasten an end to World War Two, the National Security Act was passed in 1947; it established what was called the National Military Establishment to consolidate the Army, Navy, and the newly created Air Force under one department. Congress debated for two years before passing the 1947 National Security Act. As mentioned, the law created a single, consolidated Pentagon department (the National Military Establishment), as well as the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Now, I don’t wish to be pedantic, but allow me to drop some knowledge on you. An acronym is pronounced as a word (like NASA), while an initialism is pronounced letter by letter (like FBI or NFL). Both are abbreviations formed from the first letters of a phrase, but the key difference is their pronunciation – for example, NASA is an acronym because it is said as a word, whereas FBI is an initialism because its letters are said individually.
The problem, Congress soon discovered, with “National Military Establishment” was the abbreviation formed from the first letters of its name was NME, and even as an initialism (which it is) it seemed to sound as though the speaker was pronouncing an acronym – enemy – because of what comes out of your mouth when you say the letters ‘N’ ‘M’ and ‘E’… go on, try it now, say N-M-E out loud. See?! It was thought this did not accurately reflect our values as a nation seeking peace, and so, in 1949, Congress renamed the National Military Establishment to the Department of Defense (initialism: DoD; acronym: dawd).
The US and its allies worked to establish NATO and the United Nations after WWII; these post-war organizations were framed as ways to prevent future conflicts. At the time, President Truman noted the US had ratcheted down its wartime mobilization but promised that a robust, war-ready military would remain. Referring to NATO and the UN, he made clear that the US would “support a lasting peace, by force if necessary,” but he argued that – even and especially for the military – the priority was to avoid fighting. This notion was the origin of the concept “peace through strength” used by US presidential administrations, both Republican and Democratic, throughout the Cold War nuclear buildup.
And it is precisely what President Bone Spurs I mean draft dodger I mean Trump has misunderstood in his farcical renaming of the Pentagon as the “Department of War.” Yes, that was the original name, sortof: the Continental Congress created the Army in 1775, to oppose the British, with the Navy and Marine Corps quickly following; after the ratification of the Constitution, Congress established a single Cabinet agency called the War Department in 1789, to be led by a secretary of war reporting to and advising the President. Secretaries of war were top presidential advisers from the War of 1812 through World Wars I and II. As war in Europe intensified before American involvement in World War II, Congress authorized construction of the Pentagon in 1941. Ground broke on Sept. 11th that year, and three months later Japan bombing Pearl Harbor would prompt the US to join the war, with Henry Stimson serving as President Franklin Roosevelt’s war secretary operating the War Department out of the newly constructed Pentagon (so named because it was a five-sided building; in geometry, something with five sides is called a…wait for it….pentagon).
Trump’s suggestion that “woke ideology” led to the renaming of the War Department to the Pentagon is, as with most of the word diarrhea that comes out of his mouth, demonstrably false and reveals, yet again, his profound ignorance (of American history and civics). Moreover, referring to the Defense Department as the “Department of War” telegraphs Trump’s more openly aggressive posture, exploiting the United States’ position as the world’s pre-eminent military power; he’s like a schoolyard bully whose been given a slingshot to pick off the weaker kids. And this fits with his naked power grabs domestically (deploying National Guard troops to police American cities against the wishes of the elected leadership of those municipalities), and internationally when he talks about annexing Canada, seizing the Panama Canal, or taking control of sovereign Greenland from Denmark. If you need any more proof that his desire to be considered “the ultimate peace president” and secure a Nobel Peace Prize for himself is ludicrous, you’re an idiot. But for the sake of argument, let’s review: Trump has, in his second term, bombed Iran, backed the sale of nearly $3 billion with a ‘b’ dollars’ worth of weapons to Israel, and authorized a lethal strike on a Venezuelan boat, all while he and the vice president have described US military engagements around the world as wasteful. And both of them say and do all this under the cover provided by their appeal to a kindof “Christianism” (as opposed to Christianity), with no sense of irony.
Someone might want to remind Trump and the rest of the MAGA world about Matthew 5:9 – not the 9th sentence of the fifth post to my blog, which is: “The Sequoia’s discards formed a carpet which completely obscured everything in front of our house – you couldn’t even see the green of the lawn,” but rather the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” It’s a verse from one of Jesus’ greatest hits: his famous “Sermon on the Mount.” In it he expresses the idea that those who actively work to resolve conflict and bring people together in peace are acting as God would want and will be rewarded. This beatitude encourages people to be proactive in conflict resolution, to literally be makers of peace rather than just passively keeping the peace or erring in the opposite direction: using force.
The “Department of War,” Trump says, “just sounded better.” Better than what? And how can you call yourself a Christian and appeal to Christians to vote for you while glorifying conflict? That contradicts the words of Jesus Christ himself. Perhaps in Trump’s Bible they read “Blessed are the war mongers.”