Posted on 07/20/2006 5:45:24 AM PDT by kellynla
August is just around the corner, but it isn't clear if August 2006 is going to be closer to August 2001 or August 1914.
Earlier this month, just after another on-air stint as a military analyst up at MSNBC, I told the network's new leadership to be prepared for either war abroad or another terrorist attack at home. Maybe even both. (They nodded politely and then went back to presenting "Crime Time in Prime Time.")
Or at least for a while. But you really can't blame them because everything on cable news is driven by the ratings and that means you and me. Fact is, most Americans don't like to be reminded too often that they live in a country at war. Instead, we fret about whether our kids will clear the waiting lists and get into schools like Harvard, where only seven members of last year's graduating class of 1,500 accepted military commissions.
Mostly we have outsourced the nasty business of combat to those "other people's kids" from the lower middle classes. And we find it all too easy to blame any residual unpleasantness on the malfeasance of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
If you are an Israeli citizen, however, fewer illusions are available. Military service is a universal obligation of citizenship; so when the reserves are called up to the front lines, the rest of the country seems depopulated. That may be one reason Israel's leaders seemed prepared to do almost anything to avoid putting their young in harm's way even if some of those actions contradicted recent and not-so-recent experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at mysanantonio.com ...
Exploding broads? Ouch!
An extremely bigoted view of the all volunteer army.
OTOH how many children of politicians are in Iraq? We could also ask Robert MacNamara why (or how) his son avoided serving in VietNam.
"Mostly we have outsourced the nasty business of combat to those "other people's kids" from the lower middle classes."
"An extremely bigoted view of the all volunteer army."
I don't know how "bigoted" it is,
but it is blatantly WRONG!
Semper Fi,
Kelly
Not sure what point Col Allard is trying to make here.....
Ouch!
Oh no! We're all gonna die!
Even if that were true, why rebuke people for serving their country?
Ken Allard is an a**hole. Period.
Every time I hear a Democrat trot out the "well known fact" that the military is "80% poor black" or some such nonsense, I bristle. The military is made of a clearly representational group of people from every walk of life who want to be there! Lying beggers!
Looks like a problem with timing there.
I don't think so. Almost no sons and daughters of the upper and upper-middle classes enter the military as enlisted membemrs, and precious few are commissioned.
The federal academies' cadet corps' are mostly middle to upper-middle class, because those are most of the kids who meet the academic requirements, with a smattering of working class and upper class cadets/midshipmen. (Because of the sailing connection and tradition, you'll find more upper class midshipmen at the Naval Academy: most of the major Northeasern yacht clubs have one or two middies who grew up in their junior sailing programs - I know current or or recently graduated middies from Larchmont, Seawahnaka Corinthian, American, Indian Harbor, Riverside, Noroton, and Pequot).
Beyond the academies, you still get a few upper and more upper-middle class officers from the state military colleges (Norwich, VMI and the Citadel) where there are longstanding family traditions, but even there most of the cadets are middle class. Texas A&M (gotta love the Aggies) is a resolutely middle class institution - the upper class in Texas mostly goes to the Northeast, Rice or, in some cases, UT.
The major source of officers is the ROTC, which has little presence at the elite universities and liberal arts colleges attended by the upper class and the brightest of the upper-middle class. Most of the larger ROTC programs are located at the large state universities and colleges. These institutions have mostly middle and working class student bodies, and I've been told it's not the top end of their socio-economic distribution who enrolls in ROTC.
"I don't think so. Almost no sons and daughters of the upper and upper-middle classes enter the military as enlisted membemrs, and precious few are commissioned."
The Bush & Kennedy families would disagree.
And after the Market closes today I will have time to document how wrong you are.
Semper Fi,
Kelly
Kelly, you in SA? I just moved down there from Jersey. Any other Freepers in SA?
EQ
California
California
I know a young man right now who left a pre med program to join the Marines. Right now he is at Parris Island, has made squad leader and will graduate on Aug. 18th. While he qualified for everything he chose infantry. My brother enlisted in the army after 4 years of college, then re-enlisted after 9/11. I have cousins and friends who have served that were all college graduates so I absolutely hate it when people make it seem like the only ones who serve have no other options in life, like we are idiots. Whether they are poor, middle class or rich, it doesn't matter, they volunteer to make the ultimate sacrafice for us, God bless them.
I'm not talking about the JFK/GHWB WWII generation, or even my generation (GWB in the AF Reserve), but the current generation. I point out that none of the JFK/RFK/Teddy children's generation have served. Service was still something that was done in the '60s when I was in college. My class at VMI was probably 10-15% upper class (mostly FFV with longstanding VMI traditions), 35-40% upper-middle class, 35-40% middle class, and 10-15% working class (state cadets and athletic scholarships, mostly).
I recently read that some 400 odd members of some mid-1950s class at Princeton served (mostly as officers), but only 8 of the most recent class, and that was considered high among the ivies!
BTW, I'm not dissing the volunteer military in any way! I have the greatest respect for our current officers and enlisted members, overall it's a much better and more professional force than when I was on active duty in the '70s. My beef is with the upper and upper-middle classes who don't think they ought to serve.
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