2013
I have long had the thought that our adulation of military personnel is misplaced, but I could never find a way to express the feeling.
Don’t get me wrong, this view does not in any way diminish the service and very real sacrifice of our members of the military. They are all volunteers who for whatever reason decided on a career in the military with all its risks, hardships and yes rewards.
The part that bothers me is “volunteers.” We have somehow detached military service from the obligations of our republic, like voting, serving on jury duty and more obvious the obligation for military duty. Yes, obligation. It’s not the army’s job to fight wars and protect our country, it is the obligation of every citizen. We now have multiple generations with a stake in nothing and fulfilling no obligation whatsoever to their country. That can’t be good for our society when it’s all take and no give back.
My own military service was nothing stellar. I did what I had to do with no special hardship, but it nevertheless left me with an appreciation for what it takes to be part of society with obligations. In 1961 I registered for the draft. In 1963 I was called for a draft physical. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, I enlisted in the National Guard and for six months in 1963 and 1964 I was on active duty for training. One weekend a month and two weeks in the summer is no big deal, but it is a commitment. In 1967 that weekend warrior stuff got a bit serious while driving troops to quell riots. In 1968 it got real serious, along with 25,000 other guardsmen and reservists President Johnson called us to active duty for an undetermined period. It was then I saw the commitment these people made, perhaps unknowingly, but nonetheless fulfilled. Families were uprooted and separated, careers put on hold, jobs lost and mortgages could not be paid. In those days employers did not pay the difference in lost wages and jobs were not guaranteed. My active service lasted from May 1968 until August 1969 and I was one of the lucky ones; 80% of our company went to Vietnam and came home months later.
I suspect most, if not all of us, joined the guard to avoid the draft, but do something we did and in the end it was a valuable experience. In contrast I remember a few of our members who upon being called to active duty suddenly developed medical conditions, pulled every political trick they could and within a few weeks were discharged. To this day, nearly fifty years later I remember their names; shirkers and cowards of the first order.
The point of all this is not really the military, but commitment and obligation. Military service is a big part of that obligation, sadly I might add, but there are others ways citizens could serve. Even a program requiring one year of public service in some manner would be beneficial to the Country and the individual. Upon graduation from high school every citizen should be given a choice of how they want to fulfill their obligation, be it military or otherwise.
Our military personnel are not special because they volunteered, but because they chose to fulfill their obligation as citizens while the rest of us choose to “support them” from afar. Something is very wrong in all this.
Our military is not some special class of citizen, it is us. What kind of society will we have when most citizens feel no obligation to support their country while the opposite feeling prevails? I think we already know the answer.
Check out this article from Bloomberg.com
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