“…you don’t want a soldier class in America.
You want military service to be spread across the nation geographically and sociologically. I actually think that that aspect of the all-volunteer force has weakened us a bit. We have created a bit of a warrior caste, and it’s insular. You grow up in it. My family was very much that way, and I think that it’s not healthy for the long-term good of the force.”
That’s a General Stanley McChrystal quote from his appearance on Tyler Cowen’s interview podcast Conversations with Tyler this past October. And it’s a good one.
It’s an interesting experience being a veteran these days. There’s no shortage of appreciation. Lots of it is genuine. And I’m humbled by it. I’m humbled to be included in a group whose collective service and sacrifice includes feats of heroism and sacrifice I struggle to imagine, even as someone who served. We appreciate veterans for good reason. And I hope we always do.
Much of the appreciation isn’t that genuine though. We’re often hurled as projectiles at political foes. And we’re held up as billboards for corporations building sentiment on brands. Our identity has bled into gun rights and law enforcement activism. We’re fodder for the Vaccination debate. Our politics is toxic. It’s hard to imagine a future where the universal appreciation for vets fractures a bit along political lines. It’s likely it’s already happening.
Contemporary culture would have you believe that there’s nothing more American than a solider. The veteran as a discreet subculture of America is a relatively new phenomenon though. It’s a creation of the all-volunteer service which just turned 50. It’s something our founders were wary about. Hamilton warned in the Federalist Papers of the dangers of permanent, standing armies.
“The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil.”
I’m asked to stand in the second inning of every baseball game I go to because I served while 30,000 other people, many of who also do amazing (as or more amazing) cheer. Every home Sunday game the Padres wear camouflage jerseys (on sale…only $119.99!). The point isn’t that the appreciation is unwarranted. It’s that the obligatory focus, over time, isn’t healthy nor is it particularly genuine. The pro baseball players aren’t supposed to want to be like us. It’s supposed to be the other way around. Ted Williams didn’t want to be like a pilot. He was one because they made him serve just like everyone else. None of the 17 million men and women who served had to pretend it wasn’t more amazing that he hit could hit a baseball 500 feet than it was that they answered the call.
Duty comes in many forms. It’s an obligation. Not heroism.
There’s something powerful in thinking of military service as duty instead of a heroic class of humans. If I’m not careful I’ll end up quoting Robert E. Lee here but the point is that duty is something we all have to do. In some way it’s unavoidable or this whole thing falls down. And it comes in many, many ways. By definition, you can’t do less than your duty and remain in good standing. And we all do it in some way. For some of us that duty was the service of arms in physical defense of our people. That’s a reality. Not a miracle.
This Veteran’s Day, as we wander down a more and more unhealthy military civilian divide in America, I’d like to propose we show our appreciation by joining in a thought experiment. I don’t think we’ll ever have a draft again. And I don’t think we’ll ever make military service mandatory. So I’m not going to advocate for either in vain. Instead I’ll just ask that we think of what would be different if the following were true today as it was in the years after World War II:
The 16.5 million men and women that served in the armed forces during WWII represented one-third of the then male population 15 years and older. 73% of them served overseas. In Nevada 43% of males above 15 served. Utah was 41%; New Mexico 39%; Arizona 38%; California 37%…you get the point. There were 130,201 captured and held as POWs. 407,000 of them died while in service. 672,000 suffered non-fatal wounds. 73% of them were married.1 All of them had parents.
For 90 percent of WWII veterans, WWII was the only war in which they served. It lasted four years.
In a time when the United States military had never accomplished a more important or just task, we were never further from creating a discreet warrior caste. I don’t want a war that kills tens of millions and destroys whole civilizations to be required to bring us together. I just want to think about the notion of military service differently.
When military service is broadly distributed and narrowly focused on a season of a person’s life, there’s really only one thing left to do when it’s over. Move on with your life and focus on building a better world with the lessons of service behind you.
That sounds amazing right now.
Brothers and Sisters in service, have a day. Today is yours and you earned it. Thank you for your service. But tomorrow comes early. And it’s time to get back to work.
PS…if you’re an employer…and you really want to appreciate a Vet...hire one to an important position and don’t ever tell a single one of them with appropriate domain experience that they need private sector experience first. Do that, as a policy, and the commercials and tweets you put out today are honest. Otherwise you’re just selling jerseys.
The United States Dept of Veterans Affairs. http://dig.abclocal.go.com/ktrk/ktrk_120710_WWIIvetsfactsheet.pdf