Just finished reading an excellent post from leaning left about why an all volunteer army is detrimental to our nation and how we as a nation view war. You can read it here.
I wanted to expand on the view of our military and perhaps introduce you to a few folks in my life and then transition into how despite saying we have a volunteer army, many times for many people it is not a voluntary choice but often is one of survival.
My cousin, we'll call him J for the time being, served dutifully in the Army from the years of 1999 to 2006. He was initially deployed at the Yongsan garrison in South Korea, and started his military career as a cook. Sounds lowly initially but apparently, according to him, the rest of the folks in the outfit consider a good cooks to be sacrosanct. I guess Napoleon Bonaparte had something there when he stated that an army marches on their bellies.
He slowly rose through ranks and about 4 months before the start of the Iraq war he apparently had quite a bit of responsibilities in the supply side of the management of the base and its food stores. I am unsure, in fact I may ask him when I see him later this year, of what rank he was but I do know from past stories that he was close to obtaining warrant officer status.
That all changed for him after the start of the wars. He maintained his station during the start of the Afghan war, his unit having not been called for deployment yet. He was however called after the start of the Iraq war. He was deployed shortly after the first base had been established in Baghdad and did what he knew how to do. That didn't last however. As the Iraq war pressed on and as a more firm US base was established my cousin slowly found himself being pressed out of his responsibilities. Slowly more and more his duties were handed over to contractors like KBR, Inc.
You are all aware of KBR, Inc. and its corruption so I need not feel the inclination to waste anymore space with that den of evil.
So what was my cousin to do with more time on his hands and less responsibilities? Or more rather to the point what would the Army do with a warm body who's specialty was not needed, as it was being filled by a contractor? Seeing that he had no other MOS (acronym for military specialization) the Army did the only thing they could do. They put a rifle in his hands and told him to go drive a truck.
And he did that, and did it well from what I hear. He did that for 2 years straight until a fateful afternoon while on base a random motor shell landed in the base where he was at.
Life is not without its cruel sense of humor because that afternoon, before he was almost blasted almost to smithereens, my cousin was on his way to the mess hall for food.
Long story short, he was for all practical purposes, partially disemboweled. Medics where able to stabilize him but they were unable to save a good portion of his intestines. Thankfully none of the major organs sustained much shrapnel damage, however his leg and hip were crushed from the pressure of the explosion. He also sustained severe head trauma and had various other injuries such as dislocations and fractures. He was sustained and stabilized on base until he was strong enough to be transported to a medical base in Germany. He stayed there for nearly a half year until he was recovered enough for transport back to the states.
When we finally received word he made it back to Texas and was at a VA facility there, the family breathed a sigh of relief. Over 4000 US families never got to feel that relief. Countless other families never received it either and no nothing but pain and heart ache. But many will point out that he volunteered, he knew what he was getting into right?
If you ask him now if he would do it all over again his usual response is "No, I just needed money for school". See J is part of a family of 4. My Aunt having been abandoned by their father early in their lives and with no skill set (was a stay at home mom), well....they lived squarely at or near the poverty line. He was the second oldest and his older brother after moving out of the house went into a menial job at a manufacturing facility. Decent money but nothing you could really say would advance his status in life.
J decided that he wanted to do better. He had good to average marks through High School but unfortunately student aid only can cover so much, the grants weren't there, and he wanted to avoid the excessive debt that often comes with secondary schooling. At the time the military was offering upwards of 65 thousand in schooling, so he turned to the military as an option.
His choice is not at all that unfamiliar to many. Indeed a good portion of our military is staffed by a disproportionate number of lower class and minorities. It is also staffed with a disproportionate amount of folks who only signed up to escape their lives. My cousin J signed on for school but one of his friends he made in Iraq had signed up to escape a broken home and alcoholic mother. Another had signed on because he was unable to provide for his three children after being layed off. Indeed the military is staffed with many of these and other related stories. The military has has become the last bastion of welfare in the nation. Filled with people who either had no direction, no resources for a direction, or needed to escape issues in their lives.
For many it is not a voluntary choice to defend ones nation, but rather a choice of survival.
The military surveys all new recruits as to why they enlisted. Of all the choices the one of "Service to defend nation" you would think takes the majority out of given choices, but really it only accounts for around 30 percent with a recent peak and drop off in 2003 of 38%. The rest of the answers given are a mixed bag of what I mentioned earlier; Money for school, skills training, and adventure. Join the army, meet new people, and shoot them indeed.
When you look at the statistics of who staffs the military you see a whole lot of people from close to poverty to lower middle class. Kids who want to better themselves but do not have the resources to achieve that. They have the choice of being saddled with debt their entire lives, taking a chance in the work force with only a high school diploma, or take the guarantee of a pay check, health care, and adventure to see the world.
Doesn't seem like a choice at all really.
And this cuts to the heart of the matter and why leaning left's post is such a wise insight into why we've had these protracted wars but they still seem so disjointed from our daily reality. Its really the adoption of a volunteer force that got us here in the first place. For over thirty years since Vietnam we have had the military act as a tool of upward mobility. Thirty years of kids who had no options utilizing that tool to push them upwards in social status.
However, during peacetime those who already had upward mobility are not serving in the military. The upper class of citizenry have no need to serve or utilize that social welfare tool that the military had become for us. So during wartime what ends up happening is that under class serves and takes the brunt share of risk. Their voices being few compared to the many outside the armed services. It is wholly undemocratic to have a disproportionate amount of a particular class risk their lives while the rest of us sit cozy in our rooms and watch the action unfold like some gladiatorial digital combat.
Conscription and mandatory service I think would have prevented these wars. Its much harder to sign on board to an idea, especially one of bombing and invading another nation, when you understand that your sister, your brother, your son, your daughter, your father, your mother, etc.... stand a chance of being maimed or killed during said military action. The idea sours on your tongue and you take a second look at what outcomes would occur should this nation take the responsibility into our hands of using violent force against another nation. That you have a a citizen without worry of class status and direction can have choice to avoid those thoughts? Well that's the true issue here.
No one liked the draft, but maybe that's why we need its use back. Because many people serving now and risking their lives ultimately because of their class had no choice to serve.