There’s a lengthy article entitled “Their War” in last weekend’s Washington Post magazine that I somehow failed to see on the first spin of the cycle. Worth reading end to end because of the sensitive way in which the writer seeks to understand the growing gap between a volunteer army and the people it serves. It also amplifies a point I touched on here:
The route to the parking garage takes (Yale student and ROTC Cadet Chris) Day through a stone building beneath a green copper dome. Inside, his boots slow down. Other students stream past him, the dusky, echoing space filled with the quick squeak of tennis shoes, the staccato slap of hurried flip-flops. Day always slows down in here. Columns of names of dead Yale men line the walls. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the world wars, Korea. For each of these conflicts, the columns fill whole walls.
The Vietnam columns, on the other hand, fit within a short archway. After passing through the archway, Day emerges into an open rotunda, where the walls are empty of names.
Later in the article Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, a distinguished veteran of up-close warfare himself, makes an unfortunate allusion to the all-volunteer force as “guns for hire,” mercenaries about whose deployment an increasingly disengaged policy elite acknowledges few humanitarian constraints. There’s a risk in that certainly, albeit one mitigated by the properly informed debate which ought to inform the constitutional process of committing troops to battle.
The collateral risk, given that process, is non-trivial as well: That an increasingly disconnected populace with an MTV-conditioned attention span grows bored with “our soldiers” fighting “their war” before their mission can be accomplished.
Ennui may well attempt to masquerade as outrage in time, but the troops will remain unimpressed. What an all-volunteer force will come to understand is that they were sent forth to fight and some of them to die for reasons insufficiently important to see through to a successful conclusion.
There are many unhealthy trends which boil just beneath the surface of our polity; the brand of hyper-partisanship that imputes ill will to difference in opinion being one, the politics of personal destruction that substitutes for enlightened governance of our civic commons being another. We must certainly guard against the temptations of elites to treat human lives as a commodity, and it will be a tragedy if broad segments of the populace lose faith in those who sacrifice themselves and their families in the name of the common good. But of all the toxins working through our system only this one may prove fatal: That those who sacrifice in our name might themselves lose faith with us.
As a midwestern counterpoint to Yale, there’s a similar hall at Iowa State. Starts with WWI, even more for WWII, quite a few for Vietnam, and two from Iraq. The day they engraved those two names into the hall was a tough day…one of the soldiers had a young son who during the ceremony reached up and touched his father’s name. I don’t think there was a dry eye anywhere in the hall.
I always pause when I walk through…I’m usually the only one I see who does.
Sir-
This will be the huge problem. A country that is not interested in defending itself, and mocks the people doing the dirty work. This problem really scares me. Look generations down the road. What do you see?
Rome. That’s what I see.
Chuck Hagel is a veteran? Hmm. Well, he’s about to be an ex-Senator if the Republican party in Nebraska has anything to say about it.
The brave men and women who protect this country everyday must be convinced to continue their service (post-military) through public service, especially elected office. The problem is how do folks who sacrifice financial freedom come up with the huge amount of money required to take on the self-serving, short sighted, greedy incumbents? Who among us really thinks Sen Stevens does a better job representing us than the Corporal who guarded a school in Iraq or a Petty Officer who mans a Radar screen in the Indian Ocean? The revolution is coming but it will not be what the left hopes for. Imagine a Congress filled with men and women who truly understand sacrifice and hard work and integrity and honesty. All is not lost, yet. The numbers of volunteers our military continues to enlist and reenlist shows me there are sufficient numbers of people who care about the future of this country to make a difference.
Bugsyinnc,
Ah, an optimistic future. Just what I needed to hear. I truly hope you’re right and those volunteering now will continue to volunteer in public service and translate that hard work into political resolve for all of us.
Our troops (all services, that is) are very intelligent and have shown that intelligence in how they work. I hope they do come home and take up the mantle of public offices and kick some butt along the way.
It would be refreshing to see some of our political class get their comeuppance against them, for I have no doubt who would win.
P-3W,
I truly believe a majority of Dems are hoping for defeat (yes I am calling them traitors) as they see our defeat (or withdrawal, same thing) in Iraq as a defeat for Bush and their path to power. Imagine the retribution when our uniformed personnel come home. I remain eternally optimistic for without optimism we are no better than, say, the French.
Yeahhhhh. Can’t stand it Lex.
During my son’s commissioning the entire family went to Bancroft’s Memorial Hall to touch the name of Lt. Winchester… The first USNA graduate to lose his life in Iraq and my pen pal.
I fired up the “Christmas” fudge pot to send him and his unit a little bit of cheer countless times. Not a piece of fudge touched our lips; it was bound for Iraq and the brave Marines that stood our duty.
I still can’t understand why a majority of our great country doesn’t get that…
Kristin Henderson is the author of “Their War.” She is the wife of a Navy Chaplain and I’ve come to admire and respect her a great deal. Kristin’s book, “While They’re at War” was featured in the SpouseBUZZ Book Club and she will be appearing on SpouseBUZZ Talk Radio on August 9, if you’re interested. Kristen is an incredibly thoughtful person.
Kristin touches on some disturbing trends in the WaPo article, and I’ve been thinking a great deal about them since I first read the piece.
I really do think that the Founders got it right the first time, that is:
1. Everybody shows up for Militia drill, with immaculate weapon chambered for the standard United States cartridge, wearing good boots, good stout drab clothing and having extra socks, accouterments et cetera, or he doesn’t get to vote.
2. Volunteers only, for foreign wars. Oh, yeah, with Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and Prize Money! Woot Hoot!
N. B. I am older than 45, so don’t feel the imperative to keep an infantry rifle. I do keep a 45, by the bed.
I wonder that no-one has yet replied to what I wrote above. I thought that animadverting about things one had read in the blogosphere was a leisure-time activity, maybe done late at night, and on weekends.
Instead, I suspect (judging from the dates and times of replies to my comments) that most of you guys are cheaters, and are reading at, and posting from, yer work computers.
I would really like to see more weekend and late-night participation here.
C’mon, you guys can’t *all* be married, or slackers at yer jobs?
I am 45. have a shotgun in my home, a 40 foot Federally Documented Trawler (Ready for Federal service!) and a blue ID and voting card in my wallet.
When our country needs the Ol’ fashioned Militia’s to stand up, I have no doubt that we will find the Armory’s personed to capacity.