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Posted By Thomas E. Ricks
Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - 7:38 AM
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Tom R.: Today I am offering a guest column by a young vet I know who was one of the most observant Marines I witnessed in Iraq, where he served four tours. He is still sorting through his experiences there, and his thoughts about coming back home.
There is a lot here. It works best if you read the whole thing before posting comments.
By "A. Scout-Sniper"
Best Defense national service columnist
The military is ultimately a reflection of our culture or what we would like to believe about our culture. We would like to believe that our military is an all-volunteer force filled with young and old people who represent the diversity (class, sex, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, non-religion, talent, skills or politics) of our country. We would like to believe compulsory national service has failed to win wars in the past, that a draft is the penultimate form of a dictatorship and that today's military is better than any in our history. But is it really voluntary? Is compulsory national service as threatening as some libertarians would view it? Is the all-volunteer military the "best" our country has ever produced?
As an OIF vet and Jarhead, and above all someone trying to find a healthy balance as a civilian once more, I've watched the military from within and without and the truest observation I can make is that we fight with a conscripted force in all but name.
For those who cannot listen to an argument without attacking someone's personality or politics, here is my background up front. I am a white male. I'm a middle class kid who grew up working on my grandfather's potato farm in Southern Idaho and lived in suburbia while attending badly run and academically useless public schools K-12. I'm a Generation Y, ivy-league educated, FDR liberal, environmentalist, atheist vegan. I graduated with a BA in English and History in 2002 from a private college I busted my ass to get into on an academic scholarship. I enlisted as a private in United States Marine Corps after 9/11 but I wanted to be a jarhead before that for these reasons: 1) I could not afford graduate school without the GI Bill; 2) I wanted to repay the government and country that gave my grandfather free farmland and an education after his war in Korea; and 3) I wanted to be there for my friends. I was a grunt and a scout sniper. I served four voluntary tours in Iraq. On the last two tours, I burned into my inactive reserve time and took someone else's place so they wouldn't have to go. I'm currently using the New Deal-GI Bill to pursue my graduate studies and I am a small business owner. But guess what? I'm average. This was just a job and a means to an end just like most the guys I served with. Despite the physical injuries I sustained and the PTSD I will live with forever, the lies I was told by military and civilians alike, I do not regret being there for my Marines and my Iraqis.
I do regret, until now, not responding to the snap judgments made about compulsory national service and the assumptions about an all-volunteer military. Most of the comments or observations made about free choice and diversity of an all-volunteer military are inconsistent with what I experienced. Please suspend your judgment and see things in my world for a few minutes.
1. Elitism and Snobbery
I am distressed by the elitist feelings military personnel have about themselves and the elitism showered by us, civilians, on them. This is a starting point that fits into the observations that follow. In some sense, we have transformed the military from just a regular part of government service into a special interest group that believes in its own entitlement. My view is pretty much my grandfather's view: the four year Marine Sergeant or the 24 year Army General are both citizen soldiers working for the country and are no better than their local USPS Delivery man, the Fish and Wildlife Ranger at Yosemite, a librarian, a Senator, the EPA clerk or the President.This has to be one of the very unhealthy and unintended effects of the 1974 policy that made our current military. Typically we use the high-society term "professional" to describe our military. Its overuse, by those inside and outside, sounds suspicious as if Americans in other periods were unskilled simpletons with mediocre public schooling and industrial skills who made average soldiers at best. This sets up a dangerous perception that the military is "better" than the government and, in turn, the society it serves. Part of this I-Am-Special mentality comes from the idea that we are all volunteers and thus better humans because we willingly and knowingly gave up our lives in both blood and time and joined a very small club. We don't honor our local EMTs, AmeriCorps students, Policemen, City Water Sewage personnel, teachers, and VA doctors, for instance, who give up just as much and sometimes more.
While I would like to believe that everyone volunteers 100% for only one pure reason, this is another extremist view of life. Not everyone who serves has the financial and intellectual luxuries of a Pat Tillman. That is a semi-mythical belief all of us as civilians and military tell ourselves to avoid thinking about those we consciously and unconsciously target as recruits and then send half way around the globe while we shirk or exonerate ourselves of any responsibility. USMC, we often say to sleep easy at night: U Signed the Mother-Fucking Contract.
2. Impoverished Young People
Many Marines I served with, I'm talking Sergeants and down, enlisted to escape poverty and get a college education. Most young people do not know how relatively low military pay is, especially enlisted versus officer, but it's there, every hour for four or twenty years. It also comes with signing bonuses, the GI Bill, health care, or promises of a VA house or business loan after enlistment. Prior to signing up, most of my friends asked themselves how they could pay for college growing up in the poorest class. What if you are not a great student or a superb athlete? You probably won't get that education through McDonald's and you definitely won't get it from the school or your minimum wages of your dual working parents. As we all know, it is almost impossible to get a job now without a good-looking diploma from a decently named school. And how do you get healthcare without a decent paying job? This is just part of our society and our idea of success. Occasionally, a degreeless Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, with their own hidden set of leg's up, shows up but these outliers are exceptions to the rule.I spent 30 days, after my first tour, as an assistant recruiter in Salt Lake City, UT and this only reinforced what I heard from my friends in boot camp, SOI, and in OIF 1. My recruiting NCOs and I only canvassed the poorest areas and crappiest high schools in our AO. We never visited universities or colleges, let alone middle or upper class neighborhoods. When I was ordered to cold-call various high school kids, the names on the list fit a profile: lower class, conservative families and 60% Latino immigrant or first generation Americans. All the stations in SLC are nowhere near middle or upper class areas and I suspect that this is the same in every major city. We told kids what they wanted to hear: buy your own car, never pay rent, live in base housing, no utility bills, and combat pay. It's the kind of golden ticket almost no one we recruited could refuse.
3. Other Kinds of Escapism
I can't speak for every Marine, but I can speak about the platoons and companies I lived in. More than three quarters of the men I served with didn't have any choices if they stuck around their hometowns. I am trying to make you remember what life was like at 17 or 18 and you didn't think there was a way out of the situation you were born into. Here is what I saw and was told: Some young men fled gang life in poor areas like Chicago, Redlands, Compton, San Bernardino, Watts or Portland (crimes they committed or crimes to be committed on them); some wanted US citizenship after having arrived from Latin America, Europe, or Africa; some fled religious and sexual persecution (yes there are gay marines and some are from Texas); some got off the isolated encampments known as Reservations; I had Marines escaping child abuse; some guys hated the farm life; and the mediocre athletes knew they didn't have the NFL talent now required to play at even the lowest junior university. So this word "choice," that people who never served or never served at the bottom use, smells like bullshit.My point isn't to argue that these are bad reasons for joining up and it would also be a gross generalization to say these hardships only occur in poor areas. I am telling you the decision making process is already distorted long before the recruit walks into a station. The Marines I know didn't have the luxury of thinking hard about other choices like Pat Tillman. In retrospect, most said they had no other choices.
4. Meeting Quotas/Volunteers Can Be Shit-Birds Too
Even during the shittiest period of Iraq, shittiest to the American viewpoint, the Corps and the Army still met its voluntary quotas even after several months of slipping. How did they do this? Clearly, the recruiters worked hard but we also know that certain branches just dropped the standards and hustled with better and bigger deals. The Army bonus went from 8k to 10k, scholarships from 50k to 70k, no GED = no problem, and commercials aimed at parents showed up. The Marines, having no cash to toss at first termers, changed some standards but also raised re-enlistment bonuses in a way my senior NCOs never saw in their lifetime. To preserve an all-volunteer military, the spending went up and the standards went down, not drastically but just enough, to keep quotas up.Once again, based on my experience, we started to receive the fruits of lowered standards during my third workup in summer 2005. At the time, the 2 tour Iraq vets and the really old Master Sergeants were singing the same tune. I heard similar concerns from other jarheads at 5th Marines, 7th Marines, and my friends serving as instructors at SOI and MCRD-San Diego. We had kids totally unqualified to be in the Corps, let alone a line battalion, but the pressure came from above.
By then I was the platoon sergeant at E-5 and this is what I saw in the Service Record Books of the hundred or so new-joins to my unit: lower ASVAB scores or ASVAB waivers on a test that is already too easy and measures no real sense of competence; physically weaker recruits on waivers with injuries MEPS should have disqualified them for; drug records that included documented mental disorders and criminal charges for drug dealing and small scale possession; a higher percentage of English as a 2nd language speakers which didn't bother me until trying to communicate via radio or with Iraqi translators; waivers for psychological problems such as severe ADHD/Bipolarism/Child Abuse/Sexual Abuse. One of my relatives, for instance, enlisted in the December 2005, got in trouble and pulled 45 days in San Bernardino County jail for a weapon's possession charge, C Class Misdemeanor. The recruiter tore up the contract but then resigned him six months later on a simple waiver.
Beggars couldn't be choosers and we grabbed who we could and suffered the results on deployment in 2006. Marines get in fights, make trouble and get STDs but in 2006 I saw a higher level of indiscipline amongst the new-joins than I had in the previous two tours. A few were fantastic gunfighters but at least half seemed un-ready for the Fleet. Withholding judgment, I asked other grunts in my unit if they had the same problems in their platoons and there was an overwhelming consensus that the gatekeepers at the recruiting stations had dropped ball.
Using my authority and tact, I brought the hammer down on these Marines as well as their NCOs. While I might have wanted to take a few Marines out back, lance-corporals and boot lieutenants included, in 2005 the Marine Corps came down blisteringly hard on what it called "Hazing." Everyone in the Corps has a kind of understanding about where the line has to be drawn with physical intimidation and it already existed prior to this mandate. It was a large part of making me a tougher jarhead as a new join. At the time and in retrospect, this policy change was wedded to the shortage of bodies for Iraq. Overnight, the Corps became a place where you had to be careful what you said and how you acted even if you didn't plan on making a career out of it. It made my job, as a platoon sergeant and chief scout to 34 Marines, insanely difficult. My job description was simple: train those Marines to the highest standard of combat sniping I had experienced and make the training as close to the real thing as possible. Pain (physical, psychological and academic) was an important tool to my training program. Our train the way you fight mentality turned into train the way that will not get you in trouble or lose Marines for the roster.
Let me give you a few examples of changes made that risked our combat effectiveness. My Battalion Commander forbade me to run marines in gas masks or to simulate stress under fire by dumping flour or water on them while playing Egyptian pop music while doing immediate action drills with smoke bombs and fire crackers. Typically, I made every Marine run everywhere with a battle buddy around my camp. I demanded the same sub-lot of ammunition for our sniper rifles so we could have consistent data on those guns. This is a .25-cent request. At every training shoot, I was given a different sub-lot of ammo and often machine gun ammo. To you these are simple things. To me this is life or death and is intimately connected with the concept of an all-volunteer military. I was ordered to mellow out the training because we could not get replacements for Marines I washed out.
Worst of all, because of our back-to-back-to-back deployments drumming any Marine out became impossible. Most of the platoons in my Battalion were filled with voluntary shitbirds that none of the combat vets would take to combat. Even some of my best combat vets from the Cemetery in An Najaf, began having severe PTSD symptoms and behavioral problems during the workup. This included alcohol abuse, spouse abuse, depression, wrist banging, mental fogginess, and a condition that couldn't be cured through any motivation. I tried, through the Medical Officer, the Chaplin, and my chain-of-command to get them out of the unit and back to Regiment and therapy but these attempts were denied every time. We needed the bodies. Eventually, I conceded that it would be better for some of these Marines to never go in country at all because of the risk they posed to the unit. At that point, yes, I would have loved a draft. It would have let me pick stronger candidates for our mission and bench those Marines not fit for combat.
5. Fears of a Draft
A-Draftees Make Bad Fighting Men
Many libertarians and military personnel have argued that draftees are weaker compared to volunteers. Our ancestor's military repeatedly wrecks that concept. There are plenty of draftees who had their heart in the game. I have ten relatives who were all drafted in WW2 and they learned to be damn solid "professionals" while defeating two toxic empires. "They came as liberators, not conquers. Only a tiny percentage of them wanted to be there, but only a small percentage of these men failed to do their duty" (Citizen Soldiers, Ambrose 14). What about draftees in later wars? I have my grandfather in Korea working as P-51 mechanic that kept birds flying and in turned saved many a young grunt's life. Want some stellar examples from Vietnam? Check out PFC Ronald Leroy Coker, MOH, who was drafted in 1968. What about another draftee, Spec 5 Dwight H. Johnson, MOH 1968? Oddly enough, the military still had standards for draftees and could remove recruits who were not fit for duty.Another component of this fallacy is that draftees don't have enough time to become "professional" modern day fighters? Really? Under time constraints of a six month work up and as Chief Scout, I made shake n' bake scouts out of fifteen new joins who could shoot long range, clear houses, call for fire, direct CAS, observe and gather info, practice first aid, and brief a one star general on a sniping mission. Many NCOs have done this in the last ten years. And what about all the welfare baggage a long-term professional soldier brings over the single, two-year draftee? How can you avoid the costs of emotional and financial baggage such as a spouse, kids, base housing, base roads, base facilities, and family dental and health care?
B-Draftees Bring Liberal Politics into a Non-Political Military
First off, wake up: we already have a politicized military and it is one-sided. In data collected by Adrian R. Lewis, "Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 8 to 1" in uniform and Tom has done a bit of fact finding in this department in Making the Corps. I can confirm this mainly through my own experience. I can only think of one or two men and women, way above my pay grade, who had any liberal leanings and they joined up before the 1980. I hid my politics out of a fear of retribution and because I thought the military was not supposed to be political. It is not conservativism that bothered me but the contempt for anything that would interrupt how the military should work and be used within that belief system. During boot camp, I was taught to hold civilians as nasty, sub-human liberals, which only distanced Marines from their own society. I had several First Sergeants and Officers question my motives about being in the Corps year after year once the origin of my degree was located. When my Marines asked me who I was voting for in 2004 I told them I wasn't voting because I didn't think it was okay to be engaged in politics whatsoever while in uniform. I said there was no pressure to vote or not vote and to make their own decision. A platoon commander overheard this, and instantly struck down my position and told them to re-elect the president or face the consequences of a lost war. It seemed unprofessional to me then and now.This is a pretty new development in our history and one that should trouble anyone who is trying to fight a war. Typically we want an apolitical military with lots of talented people because they can use those talents in the fight and because we don't want military coups. The first component is what keeps the balance. Talented people come from all walks of political life and whether we like it or not, a lot of the talent we need in this kind of war (historians, linguists, cultural anthropologists, union leaders, Islamic scholars, grass roots organizers, student teachers and agriculture specialists to name a few) are generally not all conservatives but that shouldn't matter. Why not have feminists, soccer moms, gay dads, retired generals, Islamic privates, psychologists, businessmen, and so forth talking about issues in the military in forums like this unlike the current situation: a small group of "professionals" or ex-military who are typically right of center and generally white men.
The loss of political variety within our military has helped create the holy cow of defense spending. We seem to write blank checks for corporations that making things for the military and blank checks for the military itself while we hack apart the entitlement programs from WW2 such as the VA, DOT, Social Security, Education, and Medicare. No one wants to be seen not "supporting the troops," that elitist problem surfacing again, by voting against something wasteful or voting against something they don't have the military education to comprehend.
C-Drafts Create Protests
This is an uncomfortable fact that we must admit: a government that wants an indefinite, badly managed war placed on a credit card without the complete consent of its citizens could only do it with an all-volunteer military. The biggest closet fear some might have and one I have heard several times, is that a draft would end the current war on terror. This fear probably carries over from the lost war in Vietnam. As we know, President Nixon promised to end the war but the draft was not entirely abolished until the war was nearly at its end in 1973. This fear of an anti-war movement has now solidified into an untouchable program but it brilliantly decreased the number of people who would protest, let alone be interested in, the actions of their own military. Aside from Cindy Sheehan, there aren't many anti-war volunteers out there marching or enduring hunger strikes and that's because they have no skin in the game either. Regardless of our political leanings or beliefs about the war, this should trouble us. It means that people who oppose the war know their efforts are useless, that only their kids are the ones fighting and dying or for the indifferent populace, they think people in the military "did it to themselves" and this is disingenuous.My response to this fear this a call out: If we are fighting a just war with clearly stated objectives and fighting this with a firm moral compass, then we have nothing to fear with re-instating a draft because nearly everyone will support the effort and those who cannot fight or will not fight can sit in jail with Thoreau, go into exile, or help build our country here.
Perception vs. Reality
I envy the black and white world of libertarianism but it's not reality. When you start digging behind the free-market or all-volunteer argument you find conscription-like inconsistencies. This is not a self-made government conspiracy but a natural growth of political policies, cultural narcissism and a culture of anti-government and anti-service since our departure from Vietnam. We have many inconsistencies to draw on. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter ordered every 18-year-old male to register with the Selective Service in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Despite the end of the Cold War, this system still exists and we require young people to register by law. This ignored fact collides with libertarian view that recruiting stations, monthly quota numbers, TV commercials, sales pitches, contract deals and standards are randomly placed and haphazardly created. Libertarians argue that recruits are free radicals with strong critical thinking skills, no emotional or financial duress, and an endless supply of time and opportunities. In this view, the fact that 37,000 non-Americans of Latino descent served in Iraq is just a random coincidence. In this view, public education teaches American kids to think critically so they make an informed decision before signing a contract with the government.We have gone from one extreme to the next. The burden of fighting and sharing a war has shrunk to the point where 1% of our citizens and their families endure the permanent life-changing consequences of warfare. A similar kind of extremism and elitism exists in the rest of our government with various parties lining up on the sides. In both cases, regardless of your political persuasion, it just looks like years of short-term self-interest have produced two broken systems. If our military is supposed to be a reflection of our culture, then what I've described should not be surprising but it should be disturbing. How can we continue to fight a war and not be asked or forced to sacrifice anything save a couple hundred dollars here and there in taxes, adding a bumper sticker we let fade to our rear window and two holidays? How can we burden such a small percentage of our people and have them return to a health care system we neglect and now want to privatize?
We have not heard enough about why compulsory service is one of the best ways to open up these divides:
- We need to find a balance that allows people to pick up a government-sponsored set of skills that can be used after service for a better society and economy. "They had learned to work together in the armed services...They built the Interstate Highway system, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the suburbs...they had learned the army virtues of a solid organization and teamwork, and the value of initiative, inventiveness, and responsibility" (Citizen Soldiers, Ambrose 472).
- Bring balance into all sections of our government, both civil and military, and our lives. For the war effort, bring in other kinds of talent (welding, languages, soil specialists, sociologists, biologists, historians, businessmen, Islamic scholars).
- It's easier to storm a with machine gun nest or pilot a drone than it is to make Awakening deals with tribal sheikhs, run and collect biometric data, conduct census patrols, train police, monitor elections, build armies and protect and run water purification plants. Our recruiting standards should reflect that need.
- One of the great side effects of national service would be easing the trauma of homecoming and PTSD for vets. It would help veterans lay down their arms and learn to trust if they didn't come home to neighborhoods and schools filled with people who cannot identify with them and have no clue what they fought for. This would save us save money at the VA and put less stress on an already overloaded system. Perhaps, as has happened with my own physical injuries, civilian doctors and health practitioners through government incentives would give vets free treatment.
Without a different structure, the future offers much of the same. The soft interventionist attempts -- ROTC programs, sending military personnel to non-military colleges, speeches, bonuses, bad movies, bad books and yellow ribbons -- haven't changed the imbalances found within or outside the military. The same applies to our government. Here is a sneak preview of things to come:
- As the inability of anyone in our government to explain succinctly what our purpose at war is, then expect more Americans to turn eyes away from the conflict and be less inclined to encourage their children to enlist unless their economic situation is dire. Other kinds of talent will not serve. In consequence of these reactions, the military would cut standards and raise bonuses, which would contribute to higher amounts of spending and weaker recruits flushed into the system. Remember to add their dependents and the welfare net that has to be built to support them.
- Expect more aimless, inarticulate plans from our governmental leaders about the way forward. This inability to present a cogent plan and stick with it will make us put the burden on certain intellectual-generals when we need tough minded civilian leadership with a robust civilian effort.
- Use volunteers, active/reserve/inactive reserve, over and over and over again until they are physically broken or mentally destroyed. Eat the decades long cost of caring for them at the VA or, much worse, if they become homeless or criminals. A service person with too much PTSD will more than likely have a break down in the field with any number of all negative consequences happening: civilian shootings and maltreatment, drug addiction-from prescription PTSD meds or recreational drugs, loss of situational awareness and general disciplinary problems.
- Supplement the lack of military with mercenaries/contractors/bloated support services like KBR and eat that cost too. At some point, they will ask for care from the VA and we have to calculate that cost. Then consider the alienation most indigenous people rightly feel about freewheeling hired guns or imported workers from Malaysia, India, or Mongolia working at the DFAC. Consider the alienation of military personnel who earn just above minimum wage standing at a Snatch VCP while the mercenary drives by at $500.00 a day. Perception is reality: this distrust can only spill over into a general distrust of all Americans as it has for Iraqis, Afghanis and our world allies.
Conclusion
The uneducated decisions made and various untruths told after 9/11 by leaders we picked, have brought us to this impasse. Like it or not, regardless of who you voted for or what party you belong to, we cannot go back. We have a moral obligation to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. We have irrevocably changed their lives by haphazardly invading their sovereign lands, toppling their governments, and upending their socio-economic lives. We have to show them our values are not imperialism, coercion, exploitation, torture, and abandonment. We will accept the consequences of our actions, correct our mistakes, commit more of our blood and treasure, and help them build the kind of countries they want over the next 90 years. If not, we face repeat consequences of terrorist attacks from the countries we abandon, justified suspicion of our motives by the rest of the world, and more half-cocked interventionist measures. At the same time, our consumption of imported fossil fuels literally kills us and this is wedded to our own undeniable self-made economic disparity and environmental disasters. As my senior drill instructor said the morning of graduation, "Ladies and Gents, it's time to sac up and eat the shit sandwich."We are going to have to make hard decisions that will not look anything like the irresponsible, childish partisan bickering of proceeding three decades. We are going to have to do what Americans do best in crises: SACRIFICE AND COMPROMISE. A natural solution, the invisible hand, a technological solution or a repeat of the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike or the Boston Tea Party are not things we can wait for.
As a young person who served in a war you made, I don't want your handshake, your pity, your daughter's phone number, or your faded bumper sticker. I did my frigging job so now do yours. Baby Boomers and Generation X: I want your leadership. Rather than cower behind a set of fragmented ideals you don't even live up to, I am asking you to exercise your adulthood and feel some pain. As we say in the grunts: lead from the front. An open and vigorous discussion of compulsory national service, for all classes, and what sacrifices you will make need to be part of the way forward.
Excellent essay.
First of all, full disclosure. My name is MAJ John Opladen, U.S. Army. I am enrolled at Fort Belvoir ILE, and I am responding to this blog post to satisfy a requirement for class...However, I would have responded to this one regardless. Now with that out of the way... Great essay. I really enjoyed hearing this point of view and I don't think we get anywhere near enough discussion or interest in this idea of national service. It seems to be one of the hundreds of "third rails" of American politics, along with serious health care reform, discussion of social security, raising taxes (you know, to actually like pay for the wars!) etc, etc.
So, that being said, I thought I'd throw a couple of logs on this fire: First, what is all this stuff about Libertarians? You refer to them frequently in your essay, and if I read you correctly, you believe them to be the main advocates for the All Volunteer Force (AVF)/status quo. I have a little different take on this, I believe that opposition to the draft or any form of national service is the one thing that the far right, far left and just about everyone in between seem to be able to agree upon, albeit for very different reasons.
I agree that the arguments against a draft are intellectually weak. Our country has accomplished amazing feats of arms with a draft army. While enacting a draft would present some serious problems in the realm of discipline and morale, I believe overall we would be a better country. The folks who argue against a draft are confusing what is good for the services with what is best for the nation, they are not necessarily one and the same (Indeed may be different more often than not). At any rate, not enough people in or out of uniform are thinking deeply about the social implications of fighting long intractable wars using the same guys and gals over and over again....It does not seem to nest well with our professed ideals. I also agree that there is a direct correlation between the AVF and an intellectually bankrupt grand strategy. What is the incentive to get anything right when leaders have absolutely zero fear of significant public dissent? A wise man once said that the U.S. doesn't fight the Thirty Years War...except now we kind of do, and only because it is an option to do so. One of the unintended consequences of going to the AVF is an extreme over reliance on force at the expense of the other instruments of national power. (See exponential growth of DoD, shrinkage of State, USAID, et al.)
The only thing our leaders (with a few notable exceptions) seem to be capable of, is enabling profligacy and apathy, ie, put everything on a credit card that is already maxed out. Feel bad about the troops? Slap a sticker on your gas guzzling SUV, feel guilty about the SUV, hey shop at Whole Foods or support your local farmer's market and BS yourself into believing that you're making a difference for the environment. As a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, I too do not want you to thank me for my service (Never know what to say to that, is it "you're welcome?") I do not want to see another bumper sticker, or hear cheers in airports. I want to see a nation that lives up to its long tradition of sacrifice and service. (Radical notion these days)
I fear that the ties that bind the military to the country are becoming increasingly strained, because as you pointed out, less than 1% of the population has "skin in the game" The sad part of all of this is that there is a zero percent chance of national service/draft ever being reinstated. I don't even think we'd go to that if a nuke went off in one of our cities, that's how much resistance there is to this concept. I welcome any comments. Thank you for putting your thoughts out there for others to consider.
Best,
JPO
Interesting...thought provoking...but no new ground here. In my opinion the author has set up a straw man to defeat with his arguments. Poor kids join the military to escape their impoverished lives? Well...that has been happening since Tiberius raised his hand and swore allegiance to the standard of his Roman Legion. I believe that for the most part a small dedicated professional army is better equipped, trained, and sustainable than a conscripted army can ever be. Remember our Marine Corps of the 1980's. I don’t believe I am looking through rose colored glasses when I say the Marines of 1987 were better trained, equipped, and manageable then their older brothers of 1977. I defer this point to Wayne and Dan, two of my former platoon Sgts. They would know better than me. It was their generation that made the transition from the Vietnam era and set the mark that I and others tried to follow. I went to Parris Island as a recruit in 1982 and returned as a DI in 1993. I can tell you the kids I graduated were a hell of a lot better trained and equipped than I was in 1982. True, during a sustained conflict such as our multiple forays in the Middle East it gets a little harder to keep up the numbers. However, throwing numbers at the problem as we did during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam would not help. Numbers are great in a conventional war but relatively useless and somewhat of a liability against a low intensity low tech insurgency. Vietnam taught us that. An interesting fact that the author omits is that during even the most patriotic and popular wars the US ever engaged in (WWII and the US Civil War) using conscription, the affluent have been afforded the opportunity to avoid the draft with medical deferments, student deferments, and political patronage. Those who truly do not want to be conscripted will find ways not to be conscripted. The rich can afford to do it with style and relative ease but the lower classes can be pretty crafty when avoiding the draft (knocking up your girlfriend, fooling medical screens, self mutilation, etc). Anyone of the Vietnam era I think would agree that those who were conscripted from 1968 until 1973 were not a fair representation of all American classes and subcultures. A good number of these conscripts from this period were pretty much what the author describes in his essay as the very types of kids he was looking for as a recruiter's assistant. I would think that if you are going to use the same types of kids for cannon fodder anyway, instead of drafting them and paying them shit wages why not give them bonuses and perks to volunteer? I would argue with the author that our current volunteer military is a pretty good representation of our United States. Rich, poor, middle class, red, yellow, white, black, intellectuals, jocks, tough guys, jokers, scammers, and scared kids trying to be men. I have seen them all. Every platoon I have served in was a cross section of America. As far as conscriptions spreading the burden of service more equally on the collective shoulders of the nation, I don’t buy that one either. If you force someone to be responsible or care their efforts will be mediocre at best. As far as the military culture fostering something of an elite attitude, thank God for that. When you go to combat to shed blood, who do you want to take with you? The guy who feels he is just an average Joe doing his duty no better or worse than the guy next to him or the guy who believes he is better, stronger, faster, and superior to the enemy he will meet? I know what my choice would be. As we grow older we mellow and change our perspective a little. I am not the same as I was at the age of 20. At the age of 20 I did feel I was doing something that most could not do…I felt stronger, faster, meaner, and superior and that fortified me so that I could go in to harm’s way and do the job I was trained to do. I served 2 combat tours for the Marines and later 2 tours as a contractor for DOD and DOS. Because guys like my former platoon Sgts Wayne and Dan instilled in me a sense of professional elitism I did well during those tours. Not the elitism of the swaggering brute born to privilege, but the superior feeling of having learned to be a man at the confident side of quiet professional men. Now at the age of 46 I feel mortal…almost fragile in a sense as I realize just how hard it is to be a professional soldier and why it’s a young man’s game. And those young men must be steeled against the rigors of combat and made to feel they are superior, superior in deed and action as only the elite professional is. In closing I state unequivocally, I am proud of the volunteer military and believe that it is strong enough and capable enough to protect our Constitution and those of us who live under that Constitution. I feel pity for Cindy Sheehan for sullied the memory of her son and God bless and keep each and every mother, father, sister, and brother of those magnificent volunteer soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who gave their lives in the service of our United States. Written in loving memory of my brother GnySgt Mathew D Garvey who ran in to that burning tower on 9/11 because he was an ELITE fire fighter of the very exclusive RESCUE 1 FDNY.
Robert D Cook
Former poor kid who quit HS in 1981 to join the Marines.
The unchallenged fallacies of this argument
Many of the arguments posed here are often stated and full of fallacies that are rarely addressed.
1. I find it interesting that a former Marine of all people cites people joing the military as "just a job" or doing it for the money. True or not, the Marines hold the reputation for the harshest conditions, longest and toughest training, harshest discipline and least amenities of the four services. Considering all services pay the same, why would anyone doing it for the money choose the Marines? Also of note is the Marines recruiting. If you want to know why people buy a product, look at how it is advertised. Now, looking at Marine Corps recruiting ads cor decades now, what do you notice? While they do offer and discuss these things as some point, NO Marine Corps commerical or ad campaign references scholarships, money, jobs or anything of the sort. The Marine Corps recruiting angle is based on pride, prestige, patriotism, membership in an elite group, etc etc.
2. People cite the percentage of drug users, criminals, non-citizens etc as an example of the military seeking the "lowest of society". Now, what is generally accepted as the alternative to those that enlist in the military? Those that go off to college. So, lets compare? Go retrieve the figures on the percentages of drug users, criminal record holders, non citizens, etc of the college student population of America. I'll bet it equals or outpaces the military numbers, by percentage.
3. People cite the military percentages of minorities and lower to middle class applicants, but I propose a vastly different theory on the reason why. Its not attitude of the military, its attitude of the upper class. Why don't upper class families send their kids to the military? What percentage of upper class kids let thier kids go to trade school? My point? The military emparts skills, but not a college degree, making analogous to a trade. Upper class society has taken an attitude where it no longer values skilled tradesmen. Minorities and lower to low middle class attitudes still do. Society (Quite sadly) has come to a point where a 24 year old mediocre business major, working a mediocre job with his shirt and tie and his cubicle in some nameless mediocre company, is held in higher esteem than an excellent 24 year old mechanic, plumber, carpenter, or military Sgt, even in the latter actually brings home more money.
This comment comes from someone who, with an IQ of 148 chose the military, recieved over 1 million dollars of training, and thus immediately walked into a six figure civilian salary.
Signed,
A two-term former Marine, OIF combat veteran, and highly trained professional
The political importance of whose skin will be in the game.
The author concludes his many arguments with a call for: "...open and vigorous discussion of compulsory national service, for all classes..."
That's the money phrase, "for all classes"; it's the one with the political electricity surging through it. A new draft would obviously have political and social consequences, many of them according to the ancient law, unanticipated.
It would certainly usher-in new perspectives regarding both political and personal self-interest among otherwise hawkish politicians and opinion-makers. Were the legislation to be drafted fairly, they would lose the luxury of sending young men and women of lower strata into harm's way; they would become accountable to their social peers and even for the lives of their own sons and daughters.
None of us in the older generation has forgotten the immense domestic uproar associated with the Vietnam War. The politics of mass protest led by the country's intelligentsia impacted decisions by policy makers. The millions of campus protesters were following their own interests no matter how principled they were. It was a natural phenomenon.
That's not happening now if only because the sons and daughters of the inarticulate poor are doing the bleeding and dying. "They volunteered, didn't they!" Well, yes, I suppose they did, but how does that impact the wisdom of our recent decisions on matters of war and peace? It doesn't. It simply makes it politically easier to pursue folly for whatever reason knowing that those who pay the price are lumpen types with no constituency.
Since the end of the Cold War there has been no peace dividend for the American people. Instead we've been bankrupted by obviously improvident foreign policies and entanglements which should have been seen as as self-destructive. It would have helped if we could have benefited from the sobering effect of a draft during that period.
not the best observation in my opinion. This is as a former enlisted Marine/Iraq war veteran myself.
I think his assumptions are colored by his politics. I can see it being uncomfortable to be a liberal in the military. But then again he had balls for trying. But to not vote I think is bullshit.
Mooj- I agree. He apparently has deep rooted ideologies, I voted in between my tours in Iraq and saw and see no problem with participating in politics while serving in a war.
It was pretty clear that he was just saying he wasn't voting, rather than reveal his support for (presumably) Kerry. His politics definitely color his views, but at least he was honest enough to state them upfront.
I'm an OIF Vet too, and I see a lot of truth in what he has to say.
I have given up voting, after my last two ballots got to me in theater AFTER election day. And it wasn't a localized problem. In Iraq in '08, our unit insisted everyone file the paperwork for absentee ballots stateside, in March, before we deployed. In country (mind you, tail end of the war, when logistics were good, and delivery speed high), probably a full 90% of our Battalion received word about Obama's victory, well before we saw our ballots arrive.
Would it have made a difference in the election? Probably not. (Although I can tell you, I don't know that I've ever talked to a single military member who had plans to vote for Obama.)
But I can tell you, with almost a quarter of a million troops overseas at any point, this SHOULD be a huge issue. If 250,000 Americans were somehow not allowed to vote because they were black/female/hispanic/pickyourminority, there would be a full re-election, and suits, and supreme court fallout. But just because we weren't here to march in the streets, it goes by the wayside.
And that was where I decided that if my country didn't care about my voice, and could settle on a flawed system that doesn't allow for equal representation, then I'd just do what Marines do best -- shut up, quit bi$%ing, and do what I'm told. Which was my duty in Iraq at the time. And I really no longer have any desire to participate in politics. It's all talk anyway, as our current President is showing.....
I enjoyed the article very much. I did not agree with all the thoughts in it, but that is to be expected.
My experiences where similar to the authors with respect to the change in standards in 2006 and 07 for recruiting. Most often the line given to us was that "We are Marines, We do more with less." Well at 90% strength being the goal to deploy and of that 90%, 20 percent were almost worthless to the point where I left some in rear areas so they would endanger my other Marines we did do more with less.
Cumpulsory service sounds nice but some damned "liberal" will make some type of exemption for college. I would think that to attain the goal of a military society that really reflects what America is then there can be no waivers for anything that even remotly smacks of elitism or preferential treatment. No deferments to work in the rain forests with the Peace Corps or a new CCC. Everyone goes into the military, if projects needs to be worked on such as roads then you go do that, if there is a war being fought then you do that. But everyone needs to eb able to do all the tasks required. I would love to speak more on this but I must run now.
I will sign off by saying that:
"It's [NOT]easier to storm a with machine gun nest or pilot a drone than it is to make Awakening deals with tribal sheikhs, run and collect biometric data, conduct census patrols, train police, monitor elections, build armies and protect and run water purification plants.
Storming a machine gun nest may seem like just a physical task with not intelectual though process involved but that would be an incorrect assumption. I always thought dealing with the sheikhs was easier and I told my Marines the same thing. Once you know that the sheikhs will almost always lie to you(and you can't take it personally) then it is easy.
So thos rat bastards who ran the the last administration wouldn't have been able to evade service like they did during Vietnam.
Scout-Snipers remarks are all very well and good and certainly reflect the views of those few of us like Rubber Ducky that the volunteer military is a colossal failure and fly’s in the face of good civic responsibility. As S-S illustrates today’s armed forces are not representative of this nation (not even close) and are little more than hired guns from the under class bleeding for their betters who have more productive things to do (a nation of Dick Cheney’s).
This rant may sound anti-military it is not it is just the opposite. Military service is valuable and all classes’ should contribute to a period of military service as the essence of good citizenship. Nothing is more American than providing young people from different origins and backgrounds an opportunity to mix together striving for a common goal. This might be the only occasion for such an eye opening experience in many of these young people lives.
Additionally, a well organized and equitable National Service Act would help reduce the absurd worshipfulness of Americans towards their military and allow them to acquire a greater practical understanding of the nature of our armed forces. As a nation our historical tradition is not that of mindless jingoistic militarism and that phenomena needs to be corralled by exposing all young people to military service.
Lastly, having the upper and upper-middle classes witnessing their own children’s lives on the line might perhaps tone down the frivolous attitude towards war that now consumes a part of America almost totally isolated from wars effects. Having the offspring of the elite in uniform would also give some pause to the propensity of an insouciant political class who with casual indifference involve this country in wars of astounding stupidity and fruitlessness with little risk to their own kith and kin.
Death of a thousand paper cuts
A. Scout Sniper writes a well-thought out and compelling thesis. There are a thousand good points in here, and probably several hundred bad ones. I'd love to take a surgeons blade and cut away the obvious missteps but I won't. I haven't the time or the inclination to point out the errors. Maybe just a matter of disagreement, or anecdotal cognitive dissonance.
I would love to see the Nation as a whole be asked to sacrifice something if these war efforts are truly in our national interest - at this point regardless of how they started I think they are (but that is a another matter for another discussion).
In the end this argument is unhinged by one single point. Yes it is a "libertarian" (small L) concept, but one I think is overarching. That point is this:
It is morally wrong to compel someone to join a service and fight a war where they may be forced to kill or be killed, especially given that refusal to fall into line will deprive that person of their freedom and liberty (to whit imprisonment or in the extreme capital punishment). It's a Hobson's choice.
Rubber Duck will be along to say that this is long decided by Supreme court decision x, y, and z...but there's plenty of those decisions that individuals might still disagree with (Roe v. Wade is an excellent example). Don't care what their decision is. If I brandish a gun and order you to don a uniform, train as a soldier, board an airplane and fight somewhere - and risk your own death, or be forced to kill others that you don't want to in order to avoid that death- well lets just say I can't think of anything more immoral than that. And that is what a draftee is forced to do. It's supremely fucked up.
I agree that wars worth fighting will receive the support they require - akin to the long lines at recruiting stations exactly 69 years ago today. I agree that wars should require sacrifice on the part of the constituency, be it victory gardens, conservation efforts, purchase of war bonds, or even a war tax. It kills me to think that both Bush and Obama have squandered the opportunities to involve the American populace. Yes these are also compelled - and I have my share of problems with some of those ideas too - but they are on a different level of severity and possible consequence.
I come from a military family. We saw in our Dad a lifestyle that was compelling and a desire to give back to our nation - inculcated in no small part by him. But we all volunteered to join the Army, (indeed for me even my parents were surprised when I said I was going to USMA instead of art school), we all served with distinction, and all but I have left the service after many years of good service (wow just added it up = 83 years of service among the 4 of us and still counting for me). I believe in the military as an institution, I respect it as a means of raising one up from poverty and hardship - this is a good thing, not some sort of false conscription - but I would NEVER FORCE someone to don the uniform and do something they haven't the heart and free will for.
Much is made of DADT and whether a gay person should lead a false life to serve their country. Many would agree (some would not) that it is immoral to ask someone to serve in silence, or worse not be allowed to serve. That change is a coming, and I welcome it because trust is what we TRY to build our organization upon. It is fundamental to our success. Given that moral construct (and the DADT example) and the need for trust, how can anyone suggest that we tell someone to "Go to war or go to jail."
Criminal and immoral.
1. I am with S-S on the yellow ribbon thing. esp. the magnetic back of the SUV kind. If that is the best you can do, I'd rather you do nothing at all.
2. If you ever expect "An open and vigorous discussion of compulsory national service, for all classes, and what sacrifices you will make need to be part of the way forward." for ALL CLASSES - you're living in la, la land. There are always going to be Dicks (like Cheney) that will navigate a path away from compulsory service.
Hunter, at the beginning of the Civil War and the both World War’s (the consensus on Tom’s blog I would suppose is that these were just and good war’s) did as you say generate long lines at the recruiting stations ‘initially’. In the Civil War the Federal government had to begin considering conscription as early as the autumn of 1862. In World Wars One & Two the substantial numbers of volunteers had pretty much disappeared within 3-4 months. In order to fill the ranks and most particularly to fill the ranks of the more technical services, which required some academic aptitude and higher-level intelligence, conscription was an imperative, unless you feel we should have opted out of those wars.
However, you are right in that compelling someone to kill and possibly be killed is a pretty terrible thing. But because it is so profoundly disturbing that risk should be spread as evenly and equitably as possible across the population if we choose war. The classes that dominate the power structure in this country and benefit the most economically should have a physical stake in the wars that they create and cheerlead particularly wars of choice such as our two current fiascos. Currently, most of these classes do so from the safety of the sidelines exploiting an ill-educated and economically distressed underclass as mercenaries to serve their interests. That is repulsive and fundamentally un-American and a perverted point of view for a civil society.
Concerning Dick Cheney the hero of FOX News and the chicken hawks that flutter around Washington all I can say is that if this country wants a fair and equitable National Service Act then it can have one. This is not a problem of theoretical physics it is a readily solvable issue of good law and effective enforcement.
Bill Clinton, to be fair.
...to complete the trifecta.
Barak Obama
He was 12 years old when we ended combat operations in Vietnam. He has never been subject to a draft. WTF, over?
Dodging happens in all parties
Remember that
Sorry, I was quick on the trigger there. President Obama makes much conversation about his Grandfather's service in Europe during the big one and his own thoughts about enlistment. He obviously hasn't been subject to the selective service or AVF enlistment.
A. Scout-Sniper has done a splendid job. Well done. Two comments prompted by his well-considered thoughts:
A. A military as far separated from the nation as is the AVF is dysfunctional in our system of government. And as now against a vastly inferior force, that it cannot accomplish its mission with strategy of its own making and essentially unlimited resources only adds to its failure.
B. War is always ugly and the human fuel needed for the war machine will suffer, whether lured into uniform by economic need or drafted under law. But if the latter, if the nation has a real stake in the war's conduct, the war-makers are denied carte blanche to continue warring absent strategy, absent result. We didn't lose the war in Vietnam because of protests, we had protests because we were losing the war and the American people couldn't figure out what we were doing, why we were there, or how long we'd need to stay. Sound familiar?
"War is not merely a political act, but also a political instrument, a continuation of political relations, a carrying out of the same by other means." - Carl von Clausewitz.
Many readers of Clausewitz interpret this quote to mean that the conduct of war should be dictated by politics. I believe that Clausewitz actually goes further than this; he is not saying that warfighting should be dictated by politics, but that IT IS A FACT OF LIFE that war is dictated by politics (including domestic politics). Many people blame public opinion at home, and the anti-war movement, for the failure of the Vietnam War. Those people don't stop to think that there was SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE POLITICS OF THE VIETNAM WAR, rather than something being wrong with the people who were against the war.
...there is the naive belief throughout the military that politics are imposed on the conduct of war from 'outside' and those who do so are - at best - only peripherally involved and should stay out. Irony there, that those in uniform who should best understand war least do. Sadness too, that those who would defend our nation understand its nature and its governance so poorly.
Let's try this as an either/or issue: either the US military is an intrinsic part of our American nation or it is a separate mercenary force employed for odd jobs and distasteful tasks. I certainly prefer the former formulation, but absent a draft and with the AVF, I fear the truth is much closer to the latter case.
RD, makes an important point that the officer corps of the armed forces since the adoption of the AVF has become more insular almost a monkish in its isolation from the tone of the nation it serves. Scout-Sniper is also quite right that the contemporary military seems to have evolved a ‘samurai’ attitude of entitlement in that its whims and desires are paramount to all others even if their performance from procurement to making war is substandard. We need greater not less public interest and involvement in the armed services and that would be most effectively realized by a National Service Act.
Where is this sense of entitlement? I am really curious. The only people who are holding up the military as heroes and all that blah, blah, blah are the people who aren't doing the hardwork - survivors guilt maybe, I dunno. But the people I work with don't have that sense of overzealous entitlement that we are chatting about here.
Actually today in the Huffpost Paul Rieckhoff of IAVA was writing about how the soldiers shouldn't pay the price for the recession. I called him out because, everyone is going to have to pay the price for the recession and the wars...we're all in it together. We can pay it now or pay it later, but we will surely pay it at some point.
Back to the topic at hand.I don't see entitlement, I see people who welcome recognition when they get it - rarely. I see people who would welcome less isolation from mainstream America - if our bases were so located. I see people who are a stratification of society at large. True some percentage is probably a larger representation of the lower or lower middle class vice the upper crust - but not sure that will ever change. I'm virtually certain that any implementation of the draft will still have the backdoor exits for those with the means to avoid it.
Entitlement? Really?
Having entered the Army in 1976 and having served until 2009, I am in agreement with with SS says. The issue he raises are profound.
The senseless arguments offered by both the military and politicans of why we can not give up the AVF ring hollow when one looks at U. S. History. If the conscript Army was so bad how come we did so well in World War I and II.
The issue which he does touch on is that the large standing military that existed since the end of World War II stands in stark contrast to the intent of the framers of the Constitution. The framers came from a tradition, where all men were parts of militia and would answer the call of their state or nation. They were fearful of a large standing professional military as being a threat the liberties of the people.
There is no question in my mind that the lack of service in the military by our elected leaders is reflected in the partisanship displayed by both those on the left and right. As David Broder pointed out several weeks ago, this is in stark contrast to previous Congresses, where the Republicans and Democrats battle over the issues, but never viewed the other side as anything but good citizens with a different point of view. They did not see the other side as the enemy or evil, they knew the real evil, the enemies they had faced in World War II.
...anecdotal cognitive dissonance
Is that not the point Hunter? This Marine survived, and witnessed, the most basic level ofactive duty experience and through education, self and formal evidently, he has presented a viable, serious critique of the situation. Of course he is going to view things differently from the officers and SNCO's. It certainly doesn't mean he's wrong or has "a hundred bad (points)".
This is the most succinct commentary on the expeditionary fiascos of the past 9 years that I have read to date. The hypocracy of both the Bush and Obama responses are laid out bare within his writing.
As it is "criminal and immoral" to force a non-believing draftee to serve in combat and a gay person in silence, is it not the same for the government to force tax increases to pay for unjust wars upon the citizens who saw through the charade--Invasion of Iraq in particular?
We have abused our own citizens, particularly those in uniform, with the "Long Wars" of the past decade. We have laid havoc upon foreign lands and murdered 10's of thousands of innocents. WTF for?
I can only say thanks and Semper Fi to Scout Sniper for his call for clarity and action. As a burnt out survivor of the past 9 years, I hold no faith that the sacrifices that Scout Sniper highlights and calls for will materialize now. There is no National concensus of moral courage for that.
...don't make a right.
The draft is not the correct or moral means to curtail a POTUS who is out of control. That's what we have a Congress for. But they were complicit in both the successes (minor) and failures (myriad).
There's very little moral courage at all, which is sad. “Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” - Gen. George S. Patton
But I can't think of anything less courageous than to yoke a young teenager into indentured service and force them to go fight a war with a gun at their back. Esp. if your goal isn't the achievement of some global political goal, but instead the prevention of such a thing. And leveraging those lives against the pols intentions? (Which didn't work for most of Vietnam). Warped logic if ever there was one.
The anecdotal cognitive dissonance means I am acknowledging that he and I have different experiences.
But to state that we should not shift away from the AVF, for these reasons, would inherently open up a huge dichotomy that should be addressed:
If it is wrong to make a person who disagrees with war or killing, do so, then wouldn't you be intrinsically making a distinction that those in an AVF somehow enjoy doing the same?
As one who has been there, I tell you -- Killing is not something done in enjoyment, or because it is favored. In fact, most are loathe to do so, and certainly to talk about it later. But they do it, because they are asked to, and feel they are doing it in the sake of something greater than themselves. They do it in the name of security. For their country, family, or whatever (don't get me wrong, I am not making a case for or against whether that is the reason for our current engagements). And if even the AVF's memebers do it, even somewhat against their desires, shouldn't it be a matter of equality, and not discriminatory, to "force" all Americans to do so, in the name of public service? To argue anything but, would be to somehow view an AVF as "choosing" to kill, etc. And this just further serves to discriminate against a sector of society only trying to serve their country.
For all you people who keep pushing a draft
FORGET IT. Ain't going to happen. Never. Ever. Period.
And for once, I agree with the gigantic, bi-partisan political consensus that this would be a terrible idea.
I don't want to go to war, or at this point have my son to go war, with a shirking, malingering draftee who doesn't want to be there. There are problems with the AVF, to be sure. Many of them will be solved by freezing the pay of federal civilian bureaucrats like myself for 5 years and giving the military some serious pay raises, on the level of 50%.
Of course, that will bring out of the woodwork a few commenting dingbats who insist, loudly and ineffectively, that the military is "overpaid." The same kind of out-of-touch people who loudly and ineffectively argue for a draft.
FORGET IT. Ain't gonna happen. Never. Ever. Period.*
*(Unless we get into a knock-down, drag-out with the Chinese, at which point all of this pretty-boy discussion becomes moot.)
History has more than enough examples of draftees fulfilling their duty and serving honorably. Hate to break it to you, but there's plenty in the AVF who don't want to be there or who think they do but want out as soon as they see what it's really like.
I can't believe Ricks dared publish this.
The point about the author "obviously" having a "deep rooted ideology" is groundless. He himself put it best: "First off, wake up: we already have a politicized military and it is one-sided."
As a former Marine sergeant who served three tours in Iraq and is now finishing his B.A. in Political Science, I agree with the author's main points. I don't know if a draft is the solution, but it amazes me that it took till 2010 for his diagnosis to see the light of day. I am just as disgusted by the uninformed "thank yous" as he is.
1. "I can't believe Ricks dared publish this."
Have you ever read his posts before? Really you need to check it out and then you will realize how stupid that question is.
2. "The point about the author "obviously" having a "deep rooted ideology" is groundless. He himself put it best: "First off, wake up: we already have a politicized military and it is one-sided.""
He himself offered the critique that he is politicized himself. Please read it again, you missed that.
3. "As a former Marine sergeant who served three tours in Iraq and is now finishing his B.A. in Political Science, I agree with the author's main points. I don't know if a draft is the solution, but it amazes me that it took till 2010 for his diagnosis to see the light of day. I am just as disgusted by the uninformed "thank yous" as he is."
Your B.A. in P.S. for the most part = BS. Just saying and once you get the degree and see that your only prospects are to go to law school than you will agree. As for the diagnosis took till 2010, you haven;t been paying attention the last 10 years.
Just saying.
I broke the rule about drinking and posting again. But then again, I drink America's Whiskey...BOURBON!!!
Tell me more, if you will, about the disgust you feel with the uninformed thank yous. I think this is something the general population has not a clue about.
Thanks,
Tom
Real quickly to Mooj Killer: I get overproportionally pissed at people I disagree with or at whom I think have missed the point too. But, as I've learned the hard way, you're more likely to get kicked off the forum than to change anyone's mind with that stuff.
Tom - I understand that people say "thank you" with good intentions: Some don't want vets to come home to mistreatment after experiences over which they had no control. Others are grateful that someone is willing to die so that they don't have to. I have no qualms with this, and I appreciate that they are just trying to do something nice for someone.
However, when I hear "thank you" from someone I don't even know, I get pretty disheartened. I'll concede that my views are probably a bit further out on this than most vets'. I was never convinced by the justification for the Iraq invasion, so I never understood my deployment to be upholding and defending the Constitution or to be protecting the American people. So the only thing for which I can feel legitimately thanked is for abstractly being willing to die had there been a cause worth dying for.
On top of that, I understand my deployment in the Arab world to have made more enemies than enemies I was able to destroy. The Muslim world is pissed that we invaded, they're pissed that we occupy, and they don't want to hear our reasons for it. In terms of national security, I believe I involuntarily helped set America back, not forward. It doesn't feel good to be thanked for that.
The operations in which I participated were almost universally ineffective. Most of what I did operationally was to stand post in tiny boxes while hating the people who ordered me to stand there in 130 degree weather, and walk around in circles while trying not to get blown up. When we did a random OP in an Iraqi house, we chose the house for its air conditioning as much as for its observational qualities. This happened repeatedly over three tours and several changes of SNCO and officer leadership, so the argument that I served under shitbirds isn't gonna fly.
Then there was the mistreatment of Iraqis, which I must insist was implicitly condoned by the chain of command. No, it wasn't everyone, and no, it wasn't necessarily official military policy. But the bottom line is that it happened on both sides of the law and almost always went unpunished in any meaningful sense. I would wager to bet that everyone who served in Iraq before the attacks plummeted has plenty of similar stories that don't come out except in the presence of very familiar company. So while I agree that it's unfair to impugn the entire military for the inappropriate actions of a few, it's also unfair to lump me in with the jerks by issuing all of us a blanket "thank you for your service" without examining my/their individual conduct. Most people (even many military officers, I think) really have no idea what goes on outside the wire, or why enlisted infantrymen do what they do.
"Welcome home"? Entirely appropriate. But I feel really uncomfortable hearing "thank you" for something I feel was a waste of taxpayer dollars and of global goodwill toward the US.
Mr. Ricks
I never needed a reason to go to war. I enlisted in teh USMC in 1989, Deleayed Entry Program, and went to boot camp in 1990. Once finished with initial training I went to the reserves as that was the contract I signed. I understood from the start that I may not agree with why I would be sent, but that I would go without complaint because that was what was expected of me. For the next 13 years no one asked me to go anywhere and I had a rare oppurtunites to do anything besides my annual training and weekend drills.
In 2003 that changed when my unit was activated. few of us felt the need to question the rationality of why we were being called and that is the way it should be. Those who bitch and complain about how they were duped and lied to while in the service in order to deploy never did and never will understand service. They are the same one who will say that they would never serve under a Democrat or Republican President; they do not understand their commitment.
I deployed two more times but after gaining a commission; I understood what I needed to do after my first deployment, and where my future lie.
As for those that say thank you... After my third deployment, I returned home with little time to decompress. My 2nd deployments saw me sail home with the 22nd MEU back from Iraq with several weeks on ship and plenty of reflection time before being "released" back into the wild. After my 3rd, no such decompression. I returned to a fantastic wife who immedietly understood. That understanding occured when we went someones party about three days after I returned. This was not a party for me mind you, just some mid 30's birthday party that someone spends too much time and energy on. After about an hour of thank yous and that must have been rough from people who cleary had no freaking clue and clearly could care less, i turned to my wife and said (sorry for the salty language) "GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"
Two days later i was on a cruise with the wife and around people who did not know who i was. Nor did I tell them what I just finished.
Point being is that the thank you is nice coming from someone who knows you very personally, or someone who has been there. I still get very self conscious when a WWII, Korea or Vietnam vet says thank you to me. But otherwise I would prefer that the people donate a dollar to a Wounded Warrior unit and ignore me. I don't need the thanks...other do.
"few of us felt the need to question the rationality of why we were being called and that is the way it should be. Those who bitch and complain about how they were duped and lied to while in the service in order to deploy never did and never will understand service."
Again, groundless.
In the first place, you have no authority to decide that your conception of service is the correct one.
Second, I bitched about nothing. I straightforwardly answered a direct question asked of me by the author of the blog. All you've done is reveal your contempt for those who would have the audacity to expect a little decency from the leaders and the democratic citizenship to whom they've entrusted the use of their very lives.
Implicit in the "service" contract is that the country will actually need what it asks of those who serve. It should be obvious to anyone that recruits do not join up expecting to be deployed for a truly unjust cause. In the most direct sense of the word, when the basis of a deployment is lies or, at best, delusion and transparently foolish strategy, deployment does not allow for service in a concrete sense. I'm not naive to an abstract nationalist notion of service for service's sake, but I find it overshadowed by the concrete likelihood that my mere presence on Middle Eastern soil motivated just some kid to join an organization dedicated to violence against the US and its allies. To this point you’ve offered no rebuttal other than an attack on my character.
Regardless of the way you think it "should" be, the simple fact is that some human beings are critical thinkers and it is lunacy to expect them to shut their prefrontal cortexes off like a light switch. Pretending to be too stupid to know better doesn't help the country in the long term, and the disaster in Iraq is a perfect example. I fail to see the wisdom in pretending that one's leaders are infallible in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary out of the fear that a real threat could pop up and all these free thinkers would suddenly refuse to fight an enemy that actually mattered.
If I wasn't willing to fulfill the terms of my service contract, I could've refused deployment and sat safely in a prison cell for a couple years before being discharged and starting over. As it was, I voluntarily extended my enlistment contract to redeploy with a rifle battalion on my third tour--solely to help bring home the junior Marines fresh out of SOI who were about to ship straight into the Sunni Triangle. I don't bring this up because I have any need to prove my character to a Mooj Killer--I have an honorable discharge and a Good Conduct Medal, and he is not the one who validates these institutions. I only bring it up to illustrate to the readership who have made it this far into my comment the bankruptcy of his position.
As to your claim that they "are the same one that would claim they will never serve under a Democrat or Republican president," I enlisted under a Republican president whose politics I disagreed with.
As an aside, this line of thinking is part of the reason that, as I mentioned, the vast majority of mistreatment and abuse of Iraqi locals went unpunished. Servicemembers have it drilled into their head from the first time they are illegally hazed in bootcamp that there is an on-paper Marine Corps and a real Marine Corps, and god help the Marine who misplaces their loyalty. Meanwhile, the official line is that, when mistreatment of civilians occurs, servicemembers are to suddenly begin thinking for themselves and report any crime or infraction of the LoW by peers who have just finished demonstrating that they are willing to use force on those who don't deserve it. This policy has failed, utterly.
Not sure why you took my post as a personal attack on you. I was just throwing my two cents in to the author of the post.
But let me respond a little.
My Conception of service is the right one for me. And I feel it should be the right one for everyone. My opinion and I am allowed to have it. You have taken my post and due to your preconceived notions have twisted it into something it isn’t. So no lengthy reply is needed since it will do no good to argue with someone like you.
“It should be obvious to anyone that recruits do not join up expecting to be deployed for a truly unjust cause.” It should be obvious, but I never, and you never were deployed for an unjust cause.
Very well written.
On a side note: I have never met a Marine who wasn't Recon/Force Recon or a Sniper.
Waving the BS Flag on a lot of this
1.) I am shocked Mr. Ricks pushed such an obvious political rant of mostly opinions not backed up by facts. I am about to do my 5th Combat tour, it is voluntary too, are you going to publish my rants as an article even though they will be far different than the young lad who just wrote this babble? I will give sources and facts at least.
2.) The Military is mostly Blue Collar and Middle Class kids, that is just a fact. Guess who suffers combat deaths in greater numbers to their representation in the general population? Whites. The writer needs to check his facts, heck, even Vietnam was not the class/race bias that urban myth wants people to buy into, Time Magazine did a study on deaths in Vietnam and found that it was pretty much a cross-ref of all the race/color/creeds and classes in America with the exception of Officers who tended to come from higher income brackets.
3.) The Army was the only branch that really dropped standards, the USMC had waiting lists at one point and often still do. The only thing they (The USMC) did do to "drop" standards was allowing those with Misdemeanors (anything from a fight (A&B) to a drunk and disorderly, etc..) not having to get a waiver. If you want to talk about dropping standards, look at the training itself, that is a direct result of our civilian PC Culture and our own General Officer Corps lack of integrity who would rather make rank than train our people hard and prepare them for war by holding to a standard and training people in a realistic manner but that would mean some would get hurt and they would have to answer. Gosh, I wonder what a General thinks is more important, funding for reflector belts or for training ammo?
4.) The draft or conscription will cost a lot of money, does anyone think about that?
5.) He seems to make a lot of excuses for his own slacking at times but never fails to buy into every rumor, old breed bitching, etc...about the "new recruits" that is as old as this country. Heck, I still bitch about the "kids" today but I know they went through a lot of the same stuff I did and I had to hear it from the guys I came up under.
I will finish up with this, while I am in favor of the AVF I would gladly change it to something else but not a conscription service the way it was. I would give people a choice, you do not have to join but if you do not then you cannot vote or run for office.
Ain't No Talent Pool Wide Enough...
I agree with the writer's perspective. I've wanted to say things to the same effect at times, but it wouldn't have rung as genuinely from an officer as it does from a former enlisted Marine. His candor on both sides of the argument is courageous.
There are existential challenges to the idea of a draft, though. For as much as the writer might hope, broadening the pool of available bodies from which he can select won't necessarily deepen the talent he needs. I think what would result is more of the same lackluster options. Consider that fully 80% of our nation's 18-24 year olds are unfit for military service. There are three primary reasons for this. They are:
- Obesity
Here's a fun fact: 45.2% of 18-24 year olds in America are overweight or obese. Nationally, your average kid walking into the recruiter's office needs to drop thirty four pounds. If he's from Alabama, it's forty six pounds. You're going to need a better PT program.
- Psychological ineligibility
If you think we've lowered the bar on psych issues, I dare you to look at who we're not taking. But there are other issues involved here that need to be addressed. Consider the following profile-- child of divorced parents, abused by their father, low income bracket, poorly educated, experiencing some form of attention deficit disorder. Know any infantry guys with one or more of those conditions? In my research on PTSD, I've come across data that indicates these are highly indicative aspects of the kind of person who seeks military service, especially combat arms. They're also major risk factors for susceptibility to PTSD. Ain't that a kick in the head?
- Security clearance ineligibility
I wouldn't suppose that criminal record issues would be an increased concern for the sector of the population we'd like to bring more of into the military. However, it's one of the three big ones.
I would thus adjust his recommendation to something more along the lines of a Heinlein model for two reasons. First, I disagree with him on the point of the warrior's status in society. Regardless of whether he came from Compton or Cambridge, or whether his motivations were profit or patriotism, he joined up and faced very real risks to make either himself or his country, or both, better. Regardless of what he placed value in, he had something that was worth war. He is not Mill's "miserable creature, who thinks that nothing is worth war and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by better men than himself." He is that better man. Secondly, I worry that making military service the default status for all people via the draft would incur the same problem we had the last time, and the one that continues in our voluntary service system today-- namely, waivers.
We can waive your service if you're a teacher, or a government employee, or local Lions Club secretary, or God-only-knows what excuses we can make. The point is that there are already people who either hold power or influence in an uneven system. If they don't want their priveleged kids going off to fight with the poor kids, they'll find a way to prevent it. You won't bring the people from opposite sides of the tracks together with a draft. You may only exacerbate the problem by highlighting just how quickly the corrupt and self-entitled will exploit their birth advantage.
Let's have graduated levels of citizenship. Make it a choice and let there be consequences for that choice. I think something with that much gravity would help add a little more maturity to the nation's youth. High school juniors really don't have any grasp that they're only two years away from being responsible for themselves-- in many instances because they actually won't be. There's a kind of socially-imposed delay on maturation. We let people defer moving out of their parents' home, on going to college, on getting a job, on just about everything they should look forward to and that real adults actually do. Perhaps not allowing them to defer choosing what kind of American they're going to be would be a nice wakeup call. If you're too fat, that should factor in the decision. If you're not psychologically fit, we can give you other options.
We shouldn't make this easy for people, and that goes both ways. There should be no default on this. What our writer has espoused in this essay isn't necessarily that the answer to our problems is forcing more people into uniform-- rather that everyone should be forced to give a damn. We can't stop economics from imposing financial luxuries on people at birth, but no one should be allowed the luxury of opting out of our national dialogue. That's not what citizenship is, not according to the founding fathers of this country or any other.
"When we assumed the soldier, we didn't shed the citizen," said Washington. I believe he was right. We have a problem in the kind of soldier we're getting these days. The solution lies not in increasing the quantity of soldiers, but in improving the quality of our citizens. Ultimately, I don't believe people are choosing to bail on their responsibility as citizens or taking the soldier route because they have no choice. I believe that 90% of people of military service age are simply not making a choice at all. They're opting out of being both a soldier and a citizen. We can't allow "I choose not to choose" to be the default. The choice must be conscious. We have to get people to wake up.
"Service guarantees citizenship" sounds like a good wakeup call to me.
Don't steal my last paragraph after I posted it ;)
"The solution lies not in increasing the quantity of soldiers...
... but in improving the quality of our citizens."
What arrogant bullshit! What a total perversion of the entire concept of 'service.' And what a telling proof of A. Scout-Sniper's entering argument, that the military caste holds itself above the nation it serves.
One might gently suggest we'd be better off abandoning both our current wars and the entire AVF. Let's start over, from first principles: the citizen-soldier; no standing armies; soldiers serve the people. Have a cadre of full-time soldiers to fall in on and a citizenry ready to protect its freedoms. Make war a last resort, not a jobs program for mercenaries.
Got news for you Jim buddy: the military is in no way superior to the people it serves.
You missed it.
1) I didn't say the status of the military was better by virtue of its collective association. I talked about individual citizens making a choice, and the impact it would make on their perception of personal responsibility. On that...
2) Before you rage-post, try signing in with your real name. I don't hide behind plastic water fowl, and I don't think anyone else should be afraid to, either. It's a free country, duck. You can say what you want, you just have to be unashamed to be associated with your bile. Otherwise, duck, chicken, it's all the same.
3) The improvement in the quality of our citizens, in my mind, has nothing to do with what choice they make. I've referred on here in the past that more people know about the Jersey Shore than the Khorengal valley. It doesn't matter whether you wear a uniform or not, voting as a basic duty of citizenship is no different than showing up to work as a basic duty for police, doctors, or the cashier at your local Wal-Mart. That's the essence of what I'm getting at-- people aren't showing up as citizens anymore. When people are forced to choose, they will take a greater interest. To invoke a common meme on this site, it doesn't matter if you choose to serve in the military or not, you will finally have skin in the game.
No big surprise there. The issue isn't entitlement or elitism - its being an informed and active citizen, which applies just as much for those people in the military (many of which as uninformed and uncaring as their fellow citizens).
My mother is a naturalized citizen who had to learn U.S. history and take a (sorta) demanding test to prove her knowledge. We don't even ask that of our people. It's harder to get a drivers license than it is to vote for any old idiot who has name recognition - Alvin Greene was a great example!
Remember the old chestnut - "You get the politicians you deserve." That could apply to a much wider breadth about our country. As JG points out Jersey Shore and DWTS are on every other night - but your chances of seeing a story on OEF or OIF is negligible, and the chances of your neighbor being able to point out where Afghanistan is on a map are equally low.
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