For those of us in the military community, especially families of those currently serving in our Armed Forces, the news that there is a huge disconnect between ourselves and the civilian community comes as no damn surprise.
Last year around this time, then Secretary Gates made this statement in a speech to a civilian audience at Duke University:
It is also true, however, that whatever their fond sentiments for men and women in uniform, for most Americans the wars remain an abstraction. A distant and unpleasant series of news items that does not affect them personally. Even after 9/11, in the absence of a draft, for a growing number of Americans, service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do. In fact, with each passing decade fewer and fewer Americans know someone with military experience in their family or social circle. According to one study, in 1988 about 40 percent of 18 year olds had a veteran parent. By 2000 the share had dropped to 18 percent, and is projected to fall below 10 percent in the future.
A full year later little has changed. All Things Considered recently ran a story about the growing gap. They saw it as part of an appropriate conversation to have as the 10th Anniversary of the Afghanistan War passed us by last week.
I think it is a very appropriate conversation to have here at DailyKos as well. What do you think about the growing gap between civilians and the military? Did you even know it existed? And do you understand where it comes from?
During the story, NPR interviewed the editor of a Pew Research Center report about the war, Paul Taylor:
"We've never had sustained combat for a full decade, and we've never fought a war in which such a small share of the population has carried the fight," he says.
It's common knowledge that only 1% of the US population serves in our Armed Services. It makes an interesting contrast to the other 1% that is in the news right now. I see an interesting picture in my mind - a balance scale with the richest 1% on one side, the 1% that serve on the other, and the 98% holding the scales, much like Justice does, contemplating the balance before them.
The report tells us something that is a relief to those who served during the Vietnam War - that civlians hold the military in high esteem. What does come as a surprise is that not very many would recommend the military as a career. Even worse, the report shows an ambivalence towards military service all together:
The civilians polled acknowledge that soldiers and their families make a lot of sacrifices. But only one-quarter see that as unfair. A large majority of civilians see it as "just being part of the military."
Ten years of war is just a part of the job.
We military folks have known this for a long time - I mean we have military members that think the same thing, that endless war is what they signed up for. Many others and I happen to disagree. But it doesn't really matter. It's what we have. And since we have it, I would like more civilians to understand the pressures and the stress of the average military family and the average active duty member. But that isn't happening.
That comes as no surprise to some service members, such as Marine Sgt. Jon Moulder. He was patrolling in Afghanistan in June when he spoke with NPR about the lack of interest back home in his mission.
"We're starting to fall to the wayside. This has been going on for so long. It's America's longest conflict running to date. Kind of like the bastard children of our generation," he said.
You might be interested to know that while civilians are ambivalent about military service, veterans are ambivalent about something else:
"It is notable that the warriors after 10 years of battle are ambivalent at best about the whole enterprise they've been engaged in," [Taylor] says.
Do you know how hard it is to do a job when you are not sure that the job is the one that you should be doing? When many of our active duty members deploy, they stick this thought in the deepest, darkest recesses of their minds. You can't fight a war when you doubt why you are there in the first place. Yet our government continues to insist that we stay and our civilian population, though increasingly against the wars, does little to share their opinion with their elected representatives.
The article doesn't offer solutions for lessening the divide but in his speech from a year ago, Secretary Gates pointed out part of the problem. Our current military comes from very specific places and populations in the US. Military members are likely to have had a parent or grandparent that served - families that honor service tend to join again. And states with heavy concentrations of bases tend to attract more military members (bolding is mine):
In this country, that propensity to serve is most pronounced in the South and the Mountain West, and in rural areas and small towns nationwide – a propensity that well exceeds these communities’ portion of the population as a whole. Concurrently, the percentage of the force from the Northeast, the West Coast, and major cities continues to decline. I am also struck by how many young troops I meet grew up in military families, and by the large number of our senior officers whose children are in uniform – including the recent commander of all U.S. Forces in Iraq whose son was seriously wounded in the war.
The military’s own basing and recruiting decisions have reinforced this growing concentration among certain regions and families. With limited resources, the services focus their recruiting efforts on candidates where they are most likely to have success – with those who have friends, classmates, and parents who have already served. In addition, global basing changes in recent years have moved a significant percentage of the Army to posts in just five states: Texas, Washington, Georgia, Kentucky, and here in North Carolina. For otherwise rational environmental and budgetary reasons, many military facilities in the northeast and on the west coast have been shut down, leaving a void of relationships and understanding of the armed forces in their wake.
This trend also affects the recruiting and educating of new officers. The state of Alabama, with a population of less than 5 million, has 10 Army ROTC host programs. The Los Angeles metro area, population over 12 million, has four host ROTC programs. And the Chicago metro area, population 9 million, has 3. It makes sense to focus on places where space is ample and inexpensive, where candidates are most inclined sign up and pursue a career in uniform. But there is a risk over time of developing a cadre of military leaders that politically, culturally, and geographically have less and less in common with the people they have sworn to defend.
A small answer comes with the recent repeal of DADT. It is hopeful that we will be able to recruit future officers from a broader spectrum of universities as many that banned recruitment have lifted sanctions against recruiters. Liberal universities need to find ways to embrace their ROTC programs and foster great relationships between the general student body and the ROTC cadets. As a graduate of UC Berkeley, I know very well how hard it is to be a military cadet at a liberal university. I saw my husband reinstate uniforms on campus only a few years after the ROTC building had been bombed on campus. We have a long history in our family of believing that the strength of our military lies in local community support.
It is also why I am here at DailyKos. Although I am not active duty, I have lived military my entire life - first as a brat who moved around the world following her Air Force dad, then as an ROTC cadet in both high school and college, and finally as the wife of an Air Force officer.
I believe our military has a place in the USA. I believe that the Military Industrial Complex needs a huge overhaul. I think many of the military community would agree with that - conservatives and progressives a like.
But I think we are fighting a lost cause unless more civilians start to take notice. Attacks on military families are coming down the line from Congress. The Military Community at DailyKos has written about retirement overhauls that are punitive, commissary benefits that may be taken away, health care costs that will rise for our retiree populations and may be instituted for active duty families, and endless stories about how the VA, though improving under the leadership of General Shinseki, still falls short. These are issues that few civilians care about.
I can tell you, almost before I hit the publish button, exactly who will leave comments in this diary. They won't all be Military Community Members. Many of them will be civilians, but they will be civilians who have taken the time to get to know me or to get to know other MCM members. That's the trick you see. The knowing. The more you know us, the less ambivalent you will be.
So prove me wrong, leave a comment and start to get to know me and, by extension, the military community, just a little bit better.