...Those Who Benefit Most...
By streiff Posted in Culture — Comments (91) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
For the past three years a cottage industry has developed bemoaning the fact that the nation’s elites and their children do not serve in the armed forces in sufficiently large numbers.
A new entry into this field is a book co-authored by Frank Schaeffer entitled: AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service -- and How It Hurts Our Country.
Schaeffer and his colleague, Kathy Roth-Douquet, make, in my view, a very unpersuasive case that military service by our self designated elites and their progeny is desirable and that their failure to serve works to the detriment of the nation.
While well intentioned, it resembles in final analysis nothing so much as pole vaulting over mouse droppings.
Read on.
Both the authors have interesting narratives. Roth-Douquet, tells Joe Galloway:
[She] describes herself as a former agitator, feminist, Ivy Leaguer and Clintonite. She just happened to fall in love with a Marine pilot and married him, she told me, thinking that within a year she would ''turn him around'' and get him out of uniform.
Instead she found herself falling in love with the military life, so much so that this year, when her husband made the list for promotion to colonel, she was delighted because it meant they could have a few more years on active duty.
[As an aside, this resume qualified her for a senior position in the Clinton Defense Department, telling you about 95% of all you need to know about that administration’s defense policy, but we would be on the verge of a pre-emptive threadjack if we dwelt on that for more than a few seconds.]
I’ve heard Schaeffer speak in a few venues about his previous book Keeping Faith, but this clip from his CNN interview tells you why this subject is of interest to him:
Yes, I have to say, you know, when he first went into the military I was trying to explain to parents all anxious to tell me how their kid was going to Harvard or Brown, what they were doing, and they would look at me and say, What is he doing that for? Do you have financial troubles? Or others said, What a waste. Or one said, oh, isn't that terribly southern, how could he go into the Marines? And really, that kind of '60s attitude of an anti-military view has prevailed in certain parts of our country and certain classes of people.
And I'm ashamed to say that often, the more educated and the people from universities and the university kind of culture, is not one very friendly to the military. And they kind of look at people like John as if, you know, what are you doing this for, forgetting that while we sleep, John and the other Marines and the Air Force and Navy and the rest of the military is watching our backs. We're free to sit here having this conversation because John is down there, willing to do the job he's doing. And that's something I never really understood on a personal level before.
Leaving aside the concept of a draft, which I believe to be un-American, needlessly divisive, and rarely proposed with national defense actually being considered, the question of military service by those perceived to be elites has been front and center since George W. Bush declared his candidacy in 1999.
As someone who really doesn’t buy into the idea of “elites” or that it is our national interest to devote more than a nanosecond or two of thought about how to best prepare the freshman class of Yale and Harvard to govern the rest of us proles, I place the “problem” in the “who freakin cares” file and the proposed solution in the category of “you’re joshing me, right.”
To their credit, Schaeffer and Roth-Douquet do not propose a draft. They nebulously propose, instead, to encourage volunteerism on the part of the privileged who presumably are destined to rule.
But the real question is does a problem actually exist? While apparently both authors have received affronts from friends on the subject of the military service of their child or spouse, is there any reason that we should care?
According to the authors there three reasons why this issue is importance:
First, it hurts the nation's ability to make sound military choices. Uniformed service is not a prerequisite for individual expertise in the conduct of war. Abraham Lincoln -- arguably America's greatest wartime president -- never served in uniform (although he spent three months in an Illinois militia). In the aggregate, however, we benefit from having veterans in every corner of our decision-making apparatus: as presidential advisers, members of Congress and active citizens. Without them, our civilian leaders embody less and less of that visceral wisdom forged in harm's way, and the problem perpetuates itself: If young people don't serve today, then we won't have older veterans in leadership positions tomorrow.
Second, a schism between the military and the rest of us weakens the armed forces. Absent broad and deep ties throughout society, the military becomes "them" instead of "us." Roth-Douquet and Schaeffer fear that such a force "will be overused and underled and that support will run out fast for any project that becomes a political liability." Consider that Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, unlike most political leaders today, both had children in uniform in the Second World War. Whether such personal connections actually affect policy is almost impossible to say, but common sense supports the authors' assertion that "the grunt on the ground is best equipped, best trained, and best served when the opinion makers have a personal stake in his or her well-being."
The greatest problem with an isolated military, however, is even less tangible. "When those who benefit most from living in a country contribute the least to its defense and those who benefit least are asked to pay the ultimate price, something happens to the soul of that country," write the authors. That argument makes for the most powerful reading in the book: "We are shortchanging a generation of smart, motivated Americans who have been prejudiced against service by parents and teachers. Their parents may think they are protecting their children. Their teachers may think they are enlightening them. But perhaps what these young people are being protected from is maturity, selflessness, and the kind of ownership of their country that can give it a better future."
All three presumptions are arguable, to say the least.
First, as Clausewitz noted, war it a continuation of politics by other means. This was amplified upon by Georges Clemenceau who observed that wars are too important to be left to generals. Sound military choices are made by military officers who are the product of well balanced experience and schooling. Militaries will always be called upon to do things that range from the unwise to the impossible. There is no evidence that military experience on the part of national leadership produces particularly good military choices (take for instance, our own War of 1812). What the perspective of an artillery battery commander (Truman) does to inform the decisions of a commander in chief is anyone’s guess.
Secondly, though the sons of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Churchill did serve in the military during the Civil War or World War II, these were wars of national survival. In none of these cases did the men in question join the military fresh out of college. Rather they halted their civilian occupations to defend their country. And they quickly left the service once that danger had passed. Indeed, throughout our history sons of presidents serving in the military has been the extreme exception. The schism between the military and civilians set foot on these shores with the first English settlers. The golden era for veterans was between 1945 and 1968. One only has to look at the treatment of veterans from the Revolutionary War through the Bonus Marchers to see that the Post-WW II era was an anomaly. Indeed, the treatment of Vietnam veterans was much more in line with our history than the GI Bill.
Lastly, I have a philosophical problem with developing national policy around the needs of “those who benefit most.” Maybe this is just the bitterness of a scion of a non elite family whose ancestors have fought in our wars since 1775 and the graduate of a non elite university. The idea that a short stint in the military is going to reverse the effects of “shortchanging a generation of smart, motivated Americans who have been prejudiced against service by parents and teachers” runs counter to what we know about the socialization of children. The idea that we must concern ourselves about the career choices of the privileged on the grounds that they are bred to govern and the rest of us bred to service borders on the offensive.
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...Those Who Benefit Most... 91 Comments (0 topical, 91 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
...on Martel. This "childrenhawking" would have been right up his alley. First we had "Chickenhawking", then "101st Fighting Keyboardists", followed by "Chairborne Rangers". All of them are failed product launches, so now we get Childrenhawking (New! With Class Warfare Added!)What's next? Sergeant Fury and his Thurston Howling 3rd Commandos?
...I think of the Russian Army in Chechnya. Yecch.
Don't you think, though, that at least a passing acquaintance with military service (active duty, growing up in a military family) would avoid the spectacle of an Asst Sec'y of the Army publicly insulting the Marine Corps?
That we won't have, as we had with the Clinton Administration, individuals in the civilian chain of command with an visceral animus towards the military?
That we wouldn't have, as we have now, an Academy that is openly discriminatory against those in uniform and unrepentantly hostile to the inclusion of the military (ROTC, recruiting, etc) in college life? Yet with a Bachelors' Degree an effective
requirement for a Commission, current and future officers are going to have to come from somewhere in addition to the Service Academies.
Not talking about career prospects for the college bound, rather about the mindset of the military's civilian leadership and the academic environment its recruiters and future officers have to endure. Mutual loathing would seem to be corrosive to our tradition of civilian control of the military.
--furious
As a former Naval Officer, it does sometimes gall me that so few of the gentry seem to have--either personally or through familial association--any military experience. I do wish that those who have benefitted most from citizenship had a greater appreciation for the true cost of said citizenship. That being said, having also known many of the "silver spoon" set, I actually see some benefit to their under-representation in uniform.
Perhaps when chivalry was in its heyday, the noble class turned out members who could lead in battle and actually put up a good fight. However, from my experience today, those traits are hard to find in the privledged.
Until it is proven to be broken, our current volunteer system has produced one of the most competent, capable and successful military machines in history.
I doubt very seriously we would field a better military today if only we could empty the classrooms and fraternity houses at Duke, Cornell, Yale and Princeton. God help the NCOs in such a scenario, as their lives will have just gotten a whole lot tougher.
are not restricted to the Ivy League.
I worked in military officer recruiting for five years prior to retirement and while it was very challenging, we met or exceeded all academic requirements for officer recruiting. An Ivy League education per se does not make an applicant more qualified or place them in a higher academic classification. Course of study, GPA, GRE, LSAT scores ect provide a rational and fair nationwide comparison. Additionally, inverview skills were often lacking from Ivy League applicants (we were looking for more than a club tie and sharp blazer).
The Ivy League's resistance to military recruiters on campus was the primary limiting factor to our recruiting effort there. In my experience, the 'snob factor' was attributed more to the faculty and parents than the students.
your example is really on par with suggesting that military experience would have prevented Okinawa Jack Murtha from claiming Marines killed civilians in cold blood.
Not really logical when you think about it.
When you look back to pre-Cold War times, having a Secretary of War or a Secretary of the Navy who were veterans was a rarity. So I don't see where mutual loathing is either encouraged or avoided by previous service.
on those that have made the decision to pursue college, as opposed to the military. Am I wrong?
If our culture placed a "premium" on having military training. We would see more of it. In other words, if military service were not only regarded as honorable, but desired in the top jobs of corporations and politics, military training would be seen as one of the punches one must get on their card on their way to the top. In the UK, the royals have military training. We should, as voters, require at least a reserve comission for national office and should place a premium on military service when considering people for corporate promotions. If you want more of that class to engage in military training, there must be some incentive for them to do so.
We have a very nice rule in my family. At formal events such as weddings and funerals, dress military uniforms are encouraged by all family members authorized to wear them. I would encourage more families and companies to adopt that policy for formal events.
Just not neccesesarily millitary service. Not everyone is suited to millitary service, and having many such people would not improve the service. Some sort of service should be a requirement for citizenship and certainly for the franchise. There is always never going to be equality of outcome as long as people are not all the same. As long as there isn't equality of outcome there won't be equality of opportunity. But there can be a certain measure of equality of experience. Common experiences and activities serve to bind our society together. This would also be the opportunity for younglings to know they had given back to their country.
The above being said, the current composition of the non mil portions of the govt could never make it work. It would be a horrendous boondoggle and press would lap up every problem like honey.
I opt for your: 'Who freakin'n Cares'? View of the subject.
'Elites' rediscovering the military as if by ephiphany.
She: (Over the iced rim of her martini): "Oh, look, Charles. Are those uniforms I see on the lawn near the front gate.
He: (Yawn) Yes, Dear.
She: Oh! (Pause with frowning contemplation) Do you suppose they are theirs or ours?
He: (Sip) Dunno.
She: Suppose we should send down some snacks - and enlist the neighbors' children?
He: Why not. So long as we can get it done before dinner.
Are the authors suggesting that there is a sense by some 'elites' that they must do 'something' about this . . . this military? That to so so is de rigueur?
If so, wouldn't it be interesting to stand to the side and observe the social uplift crowd shreek in dismay (palms at their reddened cheeks), wounded, scuttling away across the lawn as the 'Duty, Honor, Country' crowd told them all to p***- Off?
Sorry!
Lost my head for a moment.
So many here do get it, and still they don't ban me for it. :)
Didn't mean to discriminate against enlisted ranks. The idea was that one should at least be a member of the Guard or Reserves as a minimum.
...are used to taking lots of risks that the rich are just not familiar with. Without money, life in America can get pretty risky sometimes. That's maybe why the military is a more natural fit for the "poor." There are lots of very smart poor people in America, who just picked the wrong parents. :-) From the "bottom" there's only direction to go--up. And from the "top" there's also only one direction to go--down. Risk of life-and-limb looks more inviting (and familiar) from the bottom.
of class warfare in many of those who want to make such a big deal out of this. It is not that they think the military would be particularly better served were the silver spoons to grab up M-16s to march off and defend freedom. No, they relish the spectre of rural white and urban black E-6's kicking sand in the faces of Connecticut bluebloods at Parris Island or forcing kids whose sixteenth birthday present was a LandRover to do rifle drills at Benning.
It's not a question of willingness to risk or some sort of concomitant lack of regard for personal safety. Rather it is for many a rational decision that the military has more to offer, be it a paycheck, college, or a ticket out of a dead-end town, than a menial job or an attempt to scrape through college.
...Murtha isn't in the chain of command. He's a blowhard in Congress angling for Steny Hoyer's job.
"Logic" would dictate an apples-to-apples comparison.
--furious
You can attend college, obtain a reseve commission and quite possibly never see active duty deployment. If you do not require government assistance in your tuition your service requirement can be quite reasonable.
Most (about 80% last time I looked) do use ROTC for its education benefits but that isn't required. For Air Force ROTC the requirement is 4 years after college. That is comparable to a single enlistment for enlisted personnel. In other words, you don't need to choose between a career in the military and a civilian career in business. You can have the military training AND a civilian career.
brings an 8 year obligation between active and reserve regardless of source of commission. ROTC might do 90-days (approximate) active duty and 8 in the reserves. Academy grads have to do 5 years active, 3 reserve.. Some of us just stayed until we wore out our welcome.
and understand it.
my point was that the prior post by a former Naval Officer, to me, bordered on looking down on those that opted for just college, and no service.
i find this strange for an officer.(former)
--not some poor dumb soul who believes that the only way they can get ahead, or get into college is by joining the military. It's not true. Smart people join the military for other reasons. If you're a young man stuck in some one-horse town in South Dakota (state picked at random,) they have these things, called Greyhound buses. They'll take you anywhere you want to go. You don't have to join the military, unless you WANT some adventure. I think poor people are more likely to want adventure.
Would probably elect to serve as officers so there wouldn't be too much of what you describe going on. I believe the main reason for the lack of participation by the more well-to-do folks is that it isn't seen as a requirement for advancement. Post Vietnam, it hasn't been as much of a plus as it was, say, post WWII.
In my personal opinion, military training teaches you things about yourself and others that there is really no way of learning in civilian schooling. And these things make someone with that knowledge of themselves and others better leaders and better team members.
" most rich kids"....how appropriate is that?
How bout "most kids"....just a tad more accurate?
I'm not disagreeing with you, I believe there are many virtues in military service and much to be gained above and beyond any material benefit (though I do not believe it for everyone). I am simply pointing out that for many, Charlie Rangell for instance, who seize on this class warfare is at least as important as any particular conception of the national interest.
For some, the military seems the best way to get ahead. In addition to the moral benefit of public service there is college money, a steady paycheck, and world travel. It is not the best choice for everyone, but to say that a Greyhound bus offers the same opportunities is asinine. You need at least a little bit of money to strike out on your own.
EVERYONE has an 8 year obligation. By accepting the commission, you have simply agreed to start serving yours. The government may at any time call upon the rest of the population to begin serving their obligation (called the draft). But the point is, you are not under any greater obligation than anyone else is by accepting the commission, you are simply under obligation to complete it once you have started it. I served all of my obligation on active duty but many didn't. The final years of their "obligation" were in the inactive reserves. Some of the inactive reserves have been recalled to active duty, but only a tiny percentage and chances are good that those recalled were only very recently discharged.
talking about ROTC, hence the referral to commissioning.
For many to get an excellent job. Take some kid who is fairly bright but their parents don't have the money to send them to a good college. You can join the military and a few years later get out and have a great job at the local airport as a jet engine mechanic or with your police department as a helicopter mechanic. You can find yourself leapfrogged over your peers.
With more police departments deploying UAVs, where do you think they are going to get experianced people to operate and maintain them?
It isn't much of a leap from working on heavy armor to working on heavy construction equipment either. The principles are the same.
There are tremendous opportunities in the military for people to go from an uncertain future to a pretty darned good future based only on your own merit and not who your parents know or how much money they have.
I would say the military is a major factor in the growing black middle class in this country.
For what it is worth, the Texas Land Commissioner and the Texas Ag Commissioner both have sons in the Marines who have served in the current fighting. The Republican County Chairman in my neighboring county faught in Gulf War I. My dentist's son is in the Marines. Many of my friends have sons in the military. Most attended Texas colleges or Christian colleges. As far as I am concerned, they are the elite and not the Ivy league pampered children.
Mike
...a whole lot of good THAT got us. :-)
Tough call, would every citizen serving give all Americans a sense of duty and respect for military service or would it turn the whole military into a Clintonian frathouse?
I remember being in Switzerland where everyone has to serve. A young soldier boarded the train, tossed his machine gun onto the overhead and proceeded to read a book without a second thought. Imagine that happening on a US commuter rail!
I could see that kind of duty creating a sense of cohesion that does not exist now (not to mention and understanding and respect for weaponry), but like someone else here said, is the military lacking something that the upper class could give?
No real decision here, just rambling thoughts.
I know I'll be sorry for doing this but I have to ask how you can conclude this?
I doubt this for a lot of reasons but do you have studies that indicate this is the case?
What the idea here was that the class that isn't participating tends to be on the higher economic rungs of the social ladder. Forgive me if my terminology wasn't PC, but the concept is accurate.
ticks people off. Lat I checked, the US Gov. allows all able peeps, men and women,an EQUAL opportunity to serve their country...why, on freaking earth does race, ethnicity, or any other factor have to come inot the discussion?....
an 8 year contract between active and reserves?
I know my husbands initial contract was for 6 year active enlistment, with two years reserve, but he later reenlisted at 4, so he wouldn't have had any reserve obligation once he completed the 8 years (it all become moot, when he was medically discharged).
My feeling is that the military will be at its best, when the people who are serving want to be there. I think it makes for a more proffessional military overall.
The sons and daughters of the members of the corporate boardrooms don't see military service as an enhancement in their carreers. If anything they see it as a potential "time out" in their career path. That is because there is no "social premium" placed on it. It is really up to society ... you and me ... to place that premium on it. If they aren't likely to get elected to a national political office without service or they aren't likely to get promoted to top corporate management, they will then see military service as an career requirement or at least a career enhancer.
I live surrounded by military installations...I will say that a) you are wrong, b) you preusme to know about what the upper class thinks, and that is wrong as well.
a poor people join the military because they don't have jobs blah blah blah debate.
The majority of military personnel came from middle class homes. They also tended to come more from red states verses blue.
For the most part the idea that only poor people join the military is a myth. The majority of people join for reasons other than money.
I know my dh joined the military because he wanted training in the nuke program (at that time he was very interested in nuclear engineering, and was bored with college and working full time to pay for it-he learned about the nuke program from a friend and joined). He also has a sense of patriotism, and if it wasn't for his medical issues that got him discharged in the first place, I suspect he would have rejoined after 9-11.
Most of the guys we knew in the military were from middle class backgrounds. Many joined because they wanted to see the world, patriotism, GI bill, but I don't remember ever meeting anyone who joined because he had no alternatives and was too poor to do anything else.
but is it possible that kids, either rich or poor, see the services as something other than having to do with "class" ?
. . . "is the military lacking something that the upper class could give?"
I would answer, "No, but the upper class is lacking some things that the military could give them."
in adult life no longer needing military service to help it along is a big reason why some people don't bother joining up.
I also think that among certain elites there is an antimilitary belief-maybe not so much for the individual soldier, but sort of what you see in regards to the elite universities and the Soloman Amendment. If parents don't value or encourage military service, I am not convinced their children are going to do so.
I compare it a bit to differences in Southern and NE culture. Down South church is a huge social event-often attendance at a large church is good for business. In NE it isn't so much a social event, and nobody really cares what church one attends when choosing what businesses to use-networking is just different up here.
I think military service sort of works the same way-in some areas, military service is regarded as worthwhile and honorable and a step to reaching some goals (ie can't afford college, but want a job in X, military enlistment may provide some experience, training and college tuition to meet the goal). But among elites, who don't need to worry so much about where tuition is coming from, or networking etc, it doesn't hold much value and may not be regarded as worthwhile, and may even be viewed as too risky for the return.
For a LONG time, the military was the only way for someone to advance on their own merit and not based on their economic station. One could gain skills in the military they couldn't gain anywhere else. How would a black family at the lower end of the economic spectrum get their child into a job as an aircraft mechanic for FedEx or UPS? They don't know anyone there and they don't have the money for a fancy trade school.
So now you have someone who joins the military, gets married, lives in integrated housing, and has kids. Their kids grow up in a middle class lifestyle. Dad gets out of the Army and goes to work for FedEx. Now you not only have middle class blacks but you have children of middle class blacks that now have many more doors of opportunity open to them because Dad can afford college tuition that Dad's parents couldn't afford when he was that age.
The military is able to take anyone out of any economic group and allow them to succeed on their own merit. They can then return that person to civilian life much higher up on the social ladder than where they were prior to the service. Then the second generation STARTS at that higher rung and has a chance to advance even more. Had they not been in the military, their chances for doing this would have been much more limited.
When you mention that people from "red states" are more likely to volunteer, that could be because their family and their community places a social premium on the service. It is seen as a good thing to advance one in status among their peers. It might be a family tradition, it might be expected of them. No matter, it is still a social push in that case.
...by other means. In America, one cannot have a discussion about class warfare without race entering the picture, usually from the left. In this case, it came from the right, and I think crosspatch was correct in giving the military some credit--perhaps too much--for the rise of the black middle class. I would much rather hear that than some hack lefty professor making false assertions about blacks being over-represented among our war casualties.
I wasn't saying it decides on who goes in, I was commenting on what has resulet among people that come out.
I will give a very personal example. Me.
I grew up in a rural area. I had a natural talent in electronics. I knew when I was 12 years old that I wanted to work in that field. The dumpsters behind the TV repair shosp were my domain I would dive for old chassis to strip them of parts because my mom was a single mother trying to raise two kids on a factory job in the 1960's/1970's.
My choices for the future were somewhat limited. Mom couldn't afford more than a couple of years of junior college and I would still have to work. My job opportinities were limited to one of the local factories or maybe working in a local TV repair shop. My chances of getting any kind of a degree in electronics were limited.
Post Vietnam the Army had a program because they were hurting for volunteers to keep a cold war army staffed up. I could join the Army in my junior year of high school and actually finish high school in the army. Not a GED, a real diploma. I went to basic training, my AIT and went to my first assignment where I attended high school to finish my senior year. I was bright enough to qualify for anything I wanted to do so I chose a specialty in electronics. I was good at it. When time came for me to get out, Carter was president and the economy was bad so I decided to stay in and wait for the world to come back around again and maybe things would be better. In the process I reenlisted for an even more demanding electronics school (one year of school, equal to a civilian BSEE). My specialty was unique and in great demand. I had companies where my peers had gone to work after separating writing letters trying to recruit me months before I got out. When I separated, I was out of work for 9 days (over the christmas/new years holidays) before immediately going to work in the Washington DC area for a defense contractor. I have never been without a job since and now work in Silicon Valley. The dream of a 12 year old dumpster diving behind TV repair shops has been realized thanks to the US Military. You really can be all you can be. The military opens many doors.
Having said all that, my children will face a different reality. My children will see the military as not so much a path to success as an honorable thing to do that will gain them much respect in the eyes of their father (me) and make them stronger people in ways beyond the physical. My children have a certain social reason for seeing the military as a path to success. I hope for my children to serve as officers but that is ultimately up to them.
The problem is that for a lot of this the evidence is anecdotal. Your experience, and that of many military personnel of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds that I've had the honor of knowing, demonstrates that the military can be an excellent choice for people whose options might otherwise be very limited.
That the reason why the people on the higher economic rungs are under-represented because they see no advantage to service while people at the lower end do. It has nothing to do with racism or recuiting. It has more to do with economic and social realities of out society at this moment. The simple truth is that someone at the lower end of the economic scale gets more of a "boost" in life than someone at the upper end does. If you have the gumption to pull yourself up by your bootstraps but have no bootstraps available, the military can be a great provider of them. The rest is up to you.
having grown up with members of the services surrounding our home town, I've had tremendous exposure to many. and the members of the services come from all walks of life. which is why have been raised to see the services simply as "a path".
We had to memorize many quotes during Plebe Year. One that stuck with me: "An officer is much more respected than any other man who has as little money." - Samuel Johnson, 1776.
I agree with that 100%. There is much to be learned in the military. Not the least of which is personal responsibility and personal integrity in ways that are difficult to learn otherwise. You learn that you are responsible for your own success in life and you are given a living and breathing example of that.
A lot of that "cream" that has risen to the top of our society has spoiled.
The lack of rich people joining up has a lot to do with changes in the nature of modern militaries and conflicts. In the past, young elites could be enticed by the prospects of glorious battlefield triumphs. Now things are less glamorous... fighting asymmetic threats that, in terms of firepower, can't rival the US.
Take away glory and prestige, and why would a wealthy person join the military? Self-interest prevails...
duty, tradition...or can't people with money have these feelings?
But it seems a smaller percentage of them do.
unless there is data out there.
see, to me, making caes like that tend to create more problems than solve....but...nothing wrong with different opinions.
those who have the concept of the military as being some last chance ranch for poor people who have no alternative don't get why most people joined up. They view the military through their own prism, and the world they live in doesn't value military service and they don't "get" why anyone would join.
Well my point is that, even in the past when elites had greater military participation, self-interest was still a factor. The difference is that military service does not confer prestige as it did.
Indeed, fewer elites in the higher officer ranks might be a more democratic situation than the vice-versa. Consider the past role of the Prussian aristocracy in the German military... yes, they were driven by duty and nationalism, but also by elitism-- they gave the orders, commoners obeyed.
The military is just so different now than it used to be... I hesitate to make any judgments about how it should be composed, except to hope everyone is qualified for their position.
elite where you live may not be elite where i live.
wealthy where you live, might be middle class somewhere else. the problem i have with several posts is that there is still an assumption that the services are filled mostly with the "have nots".
I totally will argue that...today. It may have been the case in years past...i doubt it now. the services are a path for anyone to consider...rich, poor, black , white.
individual reasons for that path need not be over examined for social commentary.
there is elite, but values and why and how military service also may vary by region.
So why wealth may play a part in why one joins or doesn't join the military, other reasons also come into play, and I think how a region views military service in light of patriotism etc counts.
So a wealthy kid in NE and a wealthy kid in Texas may look at military service differently for different reasons.
no longer neccessarily means you need to serve in the military.
I think in general, because we have a volunteer military, people who don't care for serving aren't going to think it is the only way to show they love their country-and will nix the idea.
I think in these discussions we are trying to overly pigeonhole motivations for joining up into just one reason.
I don't know anyone who joined the military for just one reason, almost everyone may have had one or two main reasons, but there were probably 4 or 5 that easily applied as well. In the end I think choosing to join-means weighing the pros and cons, and I suspect for some who are wealthy-there are probably not as many pros to go on the scale, so they may opt out entirely. Somebody who doesn't need college money isn't going to toss that on the pro side, while somebody who is paying their way, and will likely have to work while attending is going to see that as a pro, even if it isn't THE reason they chose to join up.
I have seen the side where the rich or elite, join out of duty, honor, love of country. I think Pres. Reagan helped that come about..more of the young stepping up, getting involved and asserting themselves, even though they don't have too, need to.
with that change in younger attitudes, the services have become places of higher learning, opportunity...for that, we all benefit.
just my opinion that ones decision to enlist, or not to enlist really doesn't mean a whole lot.
the world they live in doesn't value military service and they don't "get" why anyone would join.
We are part of that world they live in and it is up to us to show that we value that service. We need to set an example to those around us that it is also okay to express the value we place on it. I believe that in many cases, people are afraid to express their gratitude or even express anything at all in normal day to day activities.
There are two little tiny things I remember when I was in the service. After graduation from my AIT (the specialty training you get after basic training) we were allowed leave before going to our permanent duty assignment. I was at the bus station in the town near the post in uniform waiting for the bus to take me to the airport. A woman and a small child were sitting there and the child whispered something and his mother said "Oh, honey, he's a brave soldier". And that wasn't long after Vietnam. That she was teaching him to associate being a soldier with a positive trait (bravery) was a good thing and drove home to me that while traveling in uniform, I was a sort of an ambassador of all of the military. The second thing is when I was returning home after a long tour in Germany (back then, a single soldier or one who brought their family had a 3 year tour) and was clearing customs at Kennedy and the woman customs agent looked at me, my duffel bag, and waived me through and said "Welcome home, soldier". Just three little words ... that she took the time to utter and wasn't afraid to say in front of all those people when the military still wasn't all that popular. It really ment a lot. Why I still remember it, I have no idea. It has been decades ago.
So if we take the time when the time presents itself to make even a very small acknowledgement of the value we place on the service to our country, others around us might be more inclined to do so too. And from there is spreads. If people in our community know that they don't need to be afraid of expressing their values, then those values are elevated in their importance.
Having a company function? Encourage the wearing of uniforms by those authorized to wear them. Same with a family or service group banquet. It sends a little signal that we are proud of our service members and it sends another message to those yet to serve that it is indeed an honorable and valued investment of your time and energy.
on the class spectrum are under represented, so there is some "value" or pro that makes people at either end reject service in the military.
But I think for everyone reasons "why" are multifaceted, and we are trying to turn it into something one dimensional.
Some actual data would be good. The OP doesn't mention how the book at issue actually supports its title's implication that the "upper class" are not enlisting. So perhaps the book makes an assumption that it did not (can not) support, in which case the discussion is mostly moot.
It does seem likely that there are data out there one way or the other, though, that would show enlistment numbers broken out by the percentages falling into various income levels, and then probably placed up against total eligible population falling into the same levels. If you're right, then for example, if roughly 5% of below-poverty level eligible enlistees commit to service, we should see roughly 5% of millionaire level enlistees committing as well - and further than those percentages ought to be pretty much the same across each income level - correct?
but are there stats that show today there is still a large desparity in the services, gauged by class, income bracket, whatever?...
Showed that the military combat arms are mostly white middle class.
"choice"....I mean, middle class has opportunity to get to college...I mean, we'll never really know until the serives upon entering ask, "well, why are you here" and catalog the data.
what purpose would that serve...who the heck knows.
whoever they are, from whatever walk of life, I'm glad they serve.
This is from an NRO article posted in 2002 quoting a Wall Sreet Journal article. NRO article by MT Owens.
... Tom Ricks observed in a January 1997 article for the Wall Street Journal, the "old stereotype about the Army's front-line units being cannon fodder laden with minorities" is false.The fact is that blacks disproportionately serve in Army combat-service support units, not combat units. When Ricks wrote his piece, such units had become "majority minority," with more black soldiers than white. By contrast, he observed, the infantry, which generally suffers the most casualties in wartime, had become "whiter than America." African Americans constituted nine percent of the infantry, compared to 11.8 percent of the age eligible civilian population. In 1995, 79 percent of the new troopers were white, compared with 74.3 percent of civilians. There is little evidence to suggest that these figures have changed much over the last five years
Why is this the case? Ricks pointed out that the new demographics of the Army have to do with the dynamics of an all-volunteer force -- Blacks and whites join the military for different reasons. On the one hand, white youths are frequently looking for adventure while they try to raise money for college. As a result, they tend to flock to the combat arms, especially elite units like the Rangers and airborne. On the other, young black males, "are generally seeking skills, and so gravitate toward administrative and technical jobs. Because they often find the Army a fairer and better place to live than civilian society, blacks tend to stay enlisted longer: Though only 22% of today's recruits are black, the Army itself is 30% black."
In addition, most pilots are white, as are most special-operations forces, e.g. Navy SEALS and Army special-forces. This leads one to the conclusion that in a war, middle-class white kids, not minorities, would be at the greatest risk, since they make up the bulk of the combat arms. So much for the conventional wisdom.
Here is an article from TRADOC, the people who train soldiers on the subject of diversity in the Army. It still doesn't address the original question of the diary ... why the more affluent are not participating.
my take on the intent of the diary was to highlight others making a BFD over the issue. Further, I thought the diarists point was, ....what a bunch of bunk.
if I'm wrong, sorry.
gotta run. chat later
except there has never been an appreciable number of African Americans serving. In the early 70s, the high water mark of African American participation in the military, they hit about 22% of the Army and Navy, and substantially less in the Air Force and Marines.
When, taking the Army for instance, one compares 22% of about 780,000 (actually an overcount as there were fewer black officers by percentage than black enlisted men) you simply aren't talking about a very large number of blacks in the context, at the same time, of a US population of about 240 million with 13% black.
Today, even less so. The Army is smaller and the percentage of black has fallen about 5% in the past 5 years with a substantial drop in the enlistment cohort.
So unless you have a real study to back up this somewhat exotic assertion, I can only remind you that the pural of anecdote is not data.
The Army is smaller and the percentage of black has fallen about 5% in the past 5 years with a substantial drop in the enlistment cohort.
So unless you have a real study to back up this somewhat exotic assertion, I can only remind you that the pural of anecdote is not data.
Your comment is nonsense. Here is some infomation.
African-American population of the United States, 12 percent
African-American population within the Army, 25 percent
African-American population represented in the Army officer corps, 12 percent
If black enlistment overall is falling, maybe that is a good sign. Maybe that means that other avenues of opportunity now exist for them where in the past the military offered one of the few available paths to success.
Your point is the most important, that elite non-participation in the military hurts them a lot more than it hurts the military.
My concern though is not that the elite will be worse off from not serving or having any friends who served - others have far more serious problems to spend our compassion on. The problem is that the elite's distorted attitudes, resulting from their ignorance about military service, affects everybody else.
Pretty much by definition, members of the elite have far larger influence on the society than others. While lots of graduates of elite universities end up in careers where they don't have much impact on our culture or politics, the ones that do are vastly overrepresented compared to everybody else. To the extent that these elites have prejudiced stereotypes of soldiers from never having known any, they will excercise a negative influence on our society.
I think the diary is wrong to dismiss that effect:
The idea that we must concern ourselves about the career choices of the privileged on the grounds that they are bred to govern and the rest of us bred to service borders on the offensive.
These "elite" kids aren't just the privileged, though there is a large overlap. Most students at Ivy League and other academically comparable institutions are not rich, but can attend because those schools are rich enough to grant sufficient financial aid to everybody admitted. The colleges that are too expensive for middle class kids to attend are lower tier schools, serving rich kids who didn't do well enough to get into the Ivy League.
Thus when elite colleges don't have ROTC and otherwise discourage military service, the malign influence isn't on the Paris Hilton set. The effect is on the high achievers who will influence society because they are high achievers, not because they where "bred to govern."
I oppose a draft, and self selection for academic careers pretty much guarantees colleges will be run by those less favorably disposed to the military. However I think it is right to condition government aid to colleges on some minimum accomodation for those students who would choose military service. The laws requiring access for military recruitment are a good idea, and I favor more aggressive support for students who want to participate in ROTC. I don't think we can solve the problem of elite under-participation in military service, but should reduce it to the extent we can.
On Income Level Representation within the US Army (I can't speak for the other services):
15% comes from low income families (under $30k/year)
22% from upper income (over $100k/year)
Everyone else from middle incomes (I don't Really have to explain this one, do I?)
This is coming from within US Army Recruiting Command. The folks with all the numbers...
Now, anyone care to write a book on how under-representation from among the poor is hurting our nation?
I posit that Their lack of service is far more damaging than not having silver-spoons in the military...
$100K a year in Santa Clara County, CA is "middle class" where the median home price is over $600,000. You can starve to death on $50,000 here. I believe income demographics should be indexed by regional norms because places like this skew the result. A dual income family out here probably has over a $200K household income and is struggling to meet the mortgage payments on a 1 million dollar 40 year old 3 bedroom one story development tract home.
So many seem so bent on getting ROTC going again in the Ivies. But, it may not be worth the effort. Given the raging hostility of Ivy faculties toward the military, I'd think it would be hard to establish an ROTC program at Harvard, Yale, etc... Perhaps too hard to justify the effort.
A friend of mine had a son in Army ROTC at an Ivy. She talked about how the faculty and administration hardly lifted a finger to work with the ROTC students. They couldn't be bothered with helping cadets work around drill requirements. The disdain for ROTC was obvious. After one year he left the program.
When Navy JAG recruiter Brian Whitaker tried to recruit at Yale a few years ago, his service to his country was commemorated with a respectful...display of black (as in mourning) crepe paper.
Some regular colleges refuse to grant academic credit for ROTC courses. With that precedent to fall back on, don't you think the faculties at the Ivies will gleefuly do the same, if forced to establish ROTC programs themselves? That will basically force ROTC cadets to take an extra--and uncompensated--academic load in order to prepare themselves for military service.
Being an ROTC cadet is tough enough, as is running a good ROTC program. Is it fair to cadets and cadre to expect them to fight a guerilla war with an Ivy's faculty and administration at the same time?
I'm sorry for the students at Ivies who would benefit from ROTC service. But, there is too much hatred of, and contempt for, the military embedded in the faculties and administration of today's Ivies. (BTW, is Columbia University, home of "million Mogadishus" Nicholas DeGenova, an Ivy? If not, it might as well be).
You don't go where you're not wanted, if you can help it. You ESPECIALLY don't go where you're hated. And, the American military is widely hated in the Ivy League.
Besides, given the widespread disdain toward patriotism one senses from today's Ivies, maybe we should be careful about drawing national security personnel from its ranks. Seems to me the Ivy mentality and values set is more conducive to creating future Kim Philbys, as opposed to future Jack Ryans. (Sure hope we rigorously polygraph any CIA or DIA recruits we get from the Ivies. You never know when the next Philby or Burgess or Maclean will pop up.)
If the DOD wants to blaze dangerous ground and set up ROTC programs in Harvard or Yale or wherever, more power to it. But, if they don't think it's a good idea, we should support that as well.
She talked about how the faculty and administration hardly lifted a finger to work with the ROTC students. They couldn't be bothered with helping cadets work around drill requirements. The disdain for ROTC was obvious. ...
Being an ROTC cadet is tough enough, as is running a good ROTC program. Is it fair to cadets and cadre to expect them to fight a guerilla war with an Ivy's faculty and administration at the same time?
I favor legislation imposing on any college accepting fed bucks the obligation to prevent a "hostile learning environment" for ROTC students, and "make reasonable accomodation for their special needs," with the same kind of trial-lawyer-bait civil damages that apply to discrimination on the basis of race or disability. University administrators generally like a calm environment, which is why they fold to the loudest activists on the faculty to avoid controversy. If they know that law suit hell awaits them if they let leftist profs give ROTC students a hard time, they'll decide facing down their loony profs is the path of least resistance.
I wouldn't expect this to result in half the Harvard student body signing up for ROTC, but for those students who do want to serve, we should stand behind them.
I believe that we are going to start to see a turn-around in that kind of behavior. I think it will take about 5 more years to really become obvious, but I think the complete discrediting of the "liberal/progressive" movement and a fundamental change in American attitudes toward the military is going to cause a shift in academic thinking.
As the professors that came up in the Vietnam era of college days retires and is replaced by a new generation, things will change.
and a heads up.
This is twice you've pulled this chickenpuckey of making a statement and correcting me based on different information. The first time was with your statement about ROTC commissioning obligations and a deflection to "all enlistments." This conversation is about DoD not the Army yet you dredge up Army data, which may or may not be dispostive of something related to the subject, which does not include time series data (the words "past 5 years" were a clue here) which, again, was the subject
Don't do this again. If you
In 2003 African Americans made up 19% of DoD in 2004 that percentage was 18.4%.
But even were we talking about the Army, according to an interview I conducted with USAREC in 2001 blacks constituted 22.3% of the accession cohort. In 2005 it was 14.5%.
So, given that the Army has the largest percentage of African Americans and Army accessions is now pulling in about 8% fewer black accessions, logic dictates the percent of African Americans must decline by about the same number as the decline in accessions.
Using the miracle of research we can see that the Army was over 29% black in 2001.
But back to the larger issue, we are talking about a small absolute number of African Americans who have served in relation to their representation in the US population. Your assertion that military service has played a role in creating the black middle class, as assertion that you have assiduously failed to document I must note, is a near statistical impossibility.
Now the heads up. I make mistakes and I am open to being corrected but I'm not going to be punked by someone who knows squat about the subject.
Drop me an email if you think you want to continue posting here. I'm in the directory.
Takes no steps to adjust for civilians' stupidity.
I agree with everyones points and believe that we would all be better off if everyone had to serve in some way. I just dont know if I agree with compelling that.
I like the idea of easing access for ROTC on campuses so that more students were made available the choice. You cant participate in something you dont have access to.
perpetuating the myth that the military is full of "have nots."
I don't have time now, but will look for an article I found during a similar debate (think it was back during the Michael Moore F911 stuff or slightly after) that indicated the majority of those in the military came from middle class backgrounds.
So while the military isn't full of "have nots" it also isn't full of "have everythings" it is mostly full of "have some things."
I also think we need to move away from the notion that people join the military, because they didn't have any other options.
My husband joined the military because it was the best option he had at the time to meet the goals he had, he had other options, one of which was to stay in school and keep working full time until he completed his degree. My husband didn't lack for options, and he signed the dotted line because he wanted to, not because he had hit bottom or was talked into it by a recruiter (my husband actually contacted the recruiter, not the other way around).
and like I said, the choice isn't usually based on one factor, but is more of a pros/cons of joining issue.
The reasons run the gammut from money for college to pure patriotism and wanting to serve the country.
My dh didn't join the Navy for the GI bill, although he signed up, because the program was there. He because he was extremely intersted in the Navy's nuclear power program. At the time he was considering a career in nuclear engineering (he later changed his mind).
One of my husbands roommates joined the Navy because he wanted to see the world (we laughed when his first ship out of prototype was a carrier still being built in the shipyard about a year or so away from commissioning).
And underlying all of them was the desire to serve their country in some capacity-I don't think you can underestimate patriotism, even if it isn't a primary reason for joining up, it is usually somewhere in the "pro" side of the scale.
Also, the military provides opportunity that enlistees may seek other than college-anymore almost anyone can get money for college through grants and loans without having to speak to a recruiter, so while the GI bill may be a pro, the fact that college can be obtained without it makes me think it isn't always the "main" reason people join (although National Guard units probably have a higher percentage of "school" being a major factor in joining than active duty to reserves does).
Ivy leagues don't have a "right" to federal funding.
If they are going to take cash from the taxpayer, then they can provide a safe learning environment for the very people who are out to protect the taxpayer (and I don't mean journalism students).
Excellent commentary, as always.
The authors seem more concerned with how a military career will benefit themselves or their peer group more than it will benefit the military itself. This is the same kind of flawed reasoning that gets us things like women in combat.
It would be great if serving would help Biff and Muffy to be more in touch with we commoners, but it would be more likely that Biff and Muffy would turn the professional officer corps into an extension of their country club.