The Gap Between U.S. and Its Troops
October 26th, 2010
Author: Tom Tiede
The United States defense secretary has dusted off a livelong issue concerning the wide divide between the nation’s civilian and military interests. Robert Gates suggests that most Americans have little linkage with the men and women who have been engaged in a pair of decade-old wars, that the U.S. battles are “a distant...series of news items that do not affect them personally,” and that many feel military service is “something for others to do.”
Gates believes the communal gap has increased since the end of the Selective Service draft in 1973. He says today’s all-volunteer force is hired increasingly from the South, from the mountain West, and from small towns. He adds that the troops are therefore more and more isolated from the larger population areas, culturally and geographically – which means they are progressively separated from the bulk of Americans they are in business to defend.
All of this is true. It is likewise ripe with history – and universal. George Washington grumped (correctly) about the impulse partition between his soldiers and the rest of revolutionary America. And nowhere in the free world is there a military that feels justly appreciated by its civilian sponsors. Except when circumstances are exceeding grave, when people are under attack, they have short interest in considering the killing or tactics of troops in combat.
And that is not going to change. However, there is a sister problem that should be addressed in the U.S., with an eye toward reflection. The nation is not very great at winning its wars any more, but it is most successful at isolating its soldiers from general society. There are about 1.4 million service members stationed at more than 440 military post in the states, and they are encouraged by design to keep to their own kind and away from civilian contact.
The major bases in particular are communities unto themselves. They are warm wombs of paternalism and patriotism. The Pentagon spends a good part of it’s $570 billion budget stocking the posts with amenities designed to maintain troop sanctity. The base exchange system alone (i.e., PX) operates more than 250 outlets (worldwide) and stocks many of them on a level with Wal-Mart. As a lure, servicemen and women get 30 percent discounts at these superstores.
For instance: Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has a humding PX. The base, home of the 82nd Airborne Division, also offers: family housing, medical care, dental services, bus travel, churches, gymnasiums, a golf course, four malls, a half dozen convenience stores, vehicle repair, barber shops, feature films, schools; one does not have to leave post even to get the dog spayed, and, further, the shopper listings includes that part of the Internet market available only to GIs.
Military authorities deny that their municipality-oriented installations are designed to sequester soldiers from the Undisciplined Outside. And there is truth in this. The on-base services began as a means to protect troops from off-base business predators, but they were likewise seen as a method of fostering coherency in GI family life; as for the price reductions, they were originally intended to augment (the no longer) mortifyingly low “soldier pay.”
Yet at the same time, the plethora of garrison services created shelters in which service men and women are split apart from the main. Often with negative consequences. The military has developed a community culture that is at odds with the real world. Many career members come to see civilians as unwashed. And vice versa. It’s common for young men to carouse anywhere, as example, but in military towns the soldiers can only do it off post, which is to say in near-base civilian dives, and on near-base civilian streets, where civilians find it insulting.
Most installations try to patch over the concerns, certainly. They host tours, offer civic-club speakers, collect toys for town tots at Christmas. But nothing replaces everyday-in-every way integration. Civilian merchants object to the unfair competition of base traders. Moms hope daughters never announce they are dating a corporal. In places, coming-of-age soldiers and civilians have targeted one another, both side lacking the empathy that comes from going to the same stores, schools, playgrounds, and eateries – in short, knowing one another.
What to do? The question is best answered with the opinion that nothing will be done. Congress has sporadically grappled with the notion of reevaluating the government-subsidized base commissaries, most recently following the Vietnam war, but the Pentagon does not lose many battles (in Washington anyway). Too, nobody wants to scrimp the troops in Time-Of-War and it is (morbidly) always Time-Of-War for America. The prospect then is for the gap between troops and the rest of us to grow wider, each side disregarding the other; that shall be very dicey, very.
October 26th, 2010
Author: Tom Tiede
The United States defense secretary has dusted off a livelong issue concerning the wide divide between the nation’s civilian and military interests. Robert Gates suggests that most Americans have little linkage with the men and women who have been engaged in a pair of decade-old wars, that the U.S. battles are “a distant...series of news items that do not affect them personally,” and that many feel military service is “something for others to do.”
Gates believes the communal gap has increased since the end of the Selective Service draft in 1973. He says today’s all-volunteer force is hired increasingly from the South, from the mountain West, and from small towns. He adds that the troops are therefore more and more isolated from the larger population areas, culturally and geographically – which means they are progressively separated from the bulk of Americans they are in business to defend.
All of this is true. It is likewise ripe with history – and universal. George Washington grumped (correctly) about the impulse partition between his soldiers and the rest of revolutionary America. And nowhere in the free world is there a military that feels justly appreciated by its civilian sponsors. Except when circumstances are exceeding grave, when people are under attack, they have short interest in considering the killing or tactics of troops in combat.
And that is not going to change. However, there is a sister problem that should be addressed in the U.S., with an eye toward reflection. The nation is not very great at winning its wars any more, but it is most successful at isolating its soldiers from general society. There are about 1.4 million service members stationed at more than 440 military post in the states, and they are encouraged by design to keep to their own kind and away from civilian contact.
The major bases in particular are communities unto themselves. They are warm wombs of paternalism and patriotism. The Pentagon spends a good part of it’s $570 billion budget stocking the posts with amenities designed to maintain troop sanctity. The base exchange system alone (i.e., PX) operates more than 250 outlets (worldwide) and stocks many of them on a level with Wal-Mart. As a lure, servicemen and women get 30 percent discounts at these superstores.
For instance: Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has a humding PX. The base, home of the 82nd Airborne Division, also offers: family housing, medical care, dental services, bus travel, churches, gymnasiums, a golf course, four malls, a half dozen convenience stores, vehicle repair, barber shops, feature films, schools; one does not have to leave post even to get the dog spayed, and, further, the shopper listings includes that part of the Internet market available only to GIs.
Military authorities deny that their municipality-oriented installations are designed to sequester soldiers from the Undisciplined Outside. And there is truth in this. The on-base services began as a means to protect troops from off-base business predators, but they were likewise seen as a method of fostering coherency in GI family life; as for the price reductions, they were originally intended to augment (the no longer) mortifyingly low “soldier pay.”
Yet at the same time, the plethora of garrison services created shelters in which service men and women are split apart from the main. Often with negative consequences. The military has developed a community culture that is at odds with the real world. Many career members come to see civilians as unwashed. And vice versa. It’s common for young men to carouse anywhere, as example, but in military towns the soldiers can only do it off post, which is to say in near-base civilian dives, and on near-base civilian streets, where civilians find it insulting.
Most installations try to patch over the concerns, certainly. They host tours, offer civic-club speakers, collect toys for town tots at Christmas. But nothing replaces everyday-in-every way integration. Civilian merchants object to the unfair competition of base traders. Moms hope daughters never announce they are dating a corporal. In places, coming-of-age soldiers and civilians have targeted one another, both side lacking the empathy that comes from going to the same stores, schools, playgrounds, and eateries – in short, knowing one another.
What to do? The question is best answered with the opinion that nothing will be done. Congress has sporadically grappled with the notion of reevaluating the government-subsidized base commissaries, most recently following the Vietnam war, but the Pentagon does not lose many battles (in Washington anyway). Too, nobody wants to scrimp the troops in Time-Of-War and it is (morbidly) always Time-Of-War for America. The prospect then is for the gap between troops and the rest of us to grow wider, each side disregarding the other; that shall be very dicey, very.