Last week Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke at Duke University and had made some intriguing comments:
"It is also true that whatever their fond sentiments for men and women in uniform, for most Americans the wars remain an abstraction, a distant and unpleasant series of news items that do not affect them personally.
"... For a growing number of Americans, service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do."
Indeed, Mr. Gates said, fewer and fewer Americans know someone with military experience in their family or their social circle, and that is particularly true in certain areas of the country, such as the Northeast, where family military traditions and college ROTC programs are more scarce.
The reason for this, of course, is the country's all-volunteer force, which essentially creates a "warrior class" of soldiers who serve in a military as a profession:
The change has been startling -- and unique in American history. Unlike the draftees of the Civil War or even the Greatest Generation of World War II, these soldiers do not become farmers or businessmen or schoolteachers when their tour is over. They reenlist. They are proud, lean and hard. If they have families, their wives and children are battered but tough. The soldiers of this generation are arguably the best fighters in the world.
Gone are the days of the citizen soldier. Today's wars are fought by a small group of dedicated, well-trained men and women who do multiple rotations in our war zones, but who "disdain what they perceive as the loose values, sloppy discipline and quick-buck self-centeredness of civilian life." According to Wood, these men and women find it hard to form civilian relationships between deployment, and end up making their lasting, personal bonds with those they serve with.
As Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute relates, Gates called this group "the best educated, the most capable force this country has ever sent into battle." And there's no doubting that. Gates finishes his point:
And, indeed, it is hard to imagine, he notes, that the country would have been able to undertake the "complex, protracted missions" it has in Iraq and Afghanistan "without the dedication of seasoned professionals who chose to serve-and keep on serving ... Going back to compulsory service, in addition to being politically impossible, is highly impracticable given the kinds of technical skills, experience, and attributes needed to be successful on the battlefield in the 21st century."
Indeed.
In fact, Gates' and Schmitt's only worry about the separation between the military and the rest of the country is that it's not drawing from a varied enough civilian population. Gates' speech was aimed at ginning up excitement for the service among Duke students, and Schmitt thinks the Secretary of Defense needs to "use his good reputation to increase public pressure on the faculties and administrations of the nation's elite schools to let ROTC back on campus." The disconnect, to Schmitt, is between reg'lar folks and the pointy-heads.
But where Gates and Schmitt find solace in the fact that Iraq and Afghanistan would have been possible only with an all-volunteer force, I think it's an excellent argument for reinstating the draft - or, heck! how about compulsory military or civil service for all 18-year-olds? After all, it was Nixon who implemented the all-volunteer army in reaction to domestic antiwar sentiment surrounding Vietnam. Could you imagine rushing in like fools into Iraq if every 18-year-old in the country were on the front lines? |
