NO SHARED SACRIFICE

Recently, a nightly news program profiled a young " hurt locker" type soldier serving in Afghanistan. (Hurt Locker was an Academy Award winner as "best picture" and featured a fearless soldier disarming bombs and blowing up IEDs (Imbedded Explosive Devices). And, here was a real soldier doing his job and saving lives in a real war, not a movie.

What was compelling about this young soldier was the fact that he is somewhat typical of many of our present day soldiers. Not that all of them are "Hurt Locker" types but that they are soldiers who come from backgrounds with limited options. In the case of the one profiled, his Dad was an alcoholic, a drug addict brother, and by his own admission, he was headed for trouble and found an escape into the Army. Good for the Army and good for us. And, he is exactly the type that the military can rescue and use; a kid from a hardscrabble life who has found a home doing the most difficult job in war.

Philosophically, however, there's a deeper story: with only 1% of our country involved in the sacrifices of our two wars, we don't have a clue as to the soldiers fighting our wars. We have an "all volunteer military" which is successful in terms of keeping the ranks filled but a dismal failure in terms of shared sacrifice. When Nobel Prize winner Mort Friedman and then Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, teamed up to get rid of the draft and into the All Volunteer Force, I can't believe that they could possibly have conceived what the eventual impact would be.

The impact has been no real shared sacrifice but it has also produced our two present wars. The President can send us to war without fear of condemnation or political fallout. After all these years at war, we have no national outcry, no marching in the streets, Vietnam style. And why? Americans have no investment, we're content to let the "Hurt Locker" soldiers fight our wars. I am so tired of hearing the politicians talk about the American people. Bullshit. Most people in this country don't really care. We would be lucky if we had half of our people with any real interest in who is fighting our wars. As a nation, we should be ashamed!

MILITARY IS MOST TRUSTED INSTITUTION

A new poll says the American public ranks the U. S. Armed Forces first in terms of trust among American institutions. So ironic to me, in light of a couple of things. The institution that is ranked last is Congress who in essence, can send the military to war or at least collude in it.

Gallup polled Americans on 15 government, business, and cultural institutions asking, "Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in each one." The military scored 69 percent of those answering a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence. It is also amazing to me that the military's high standing with the public comes despite generally negative news media coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I can't help but wonder and call me skeptical, if it isn't pretty easy to have confidence in the military since there is, by in large, no real sacrifice on the part of the vast majority of Americans. Some evidence lies in the fact that in another survey parents said they were less likely to recommend the military to their sons and daughters than if there was no war going on.

As much as I think the government's management of the war in Iraq, in particular, in every aspect, has been dismal, the fact exists that the military exists for one purpose: to fight and win wars. When a youngster joins the military, he or she is not joining a college fraternity or sorority. Consequently, I'm not all that high on the survey. Excellent books like AWOL(absent without leave) which persuasively puts forth the argument and fact that the more privileged Americans simply choose not to be part of the military.

Here's a good indication: recently on a News Hour on PBS, at the end of the program as they usually do, they profiled with a picture young Americans who had lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan: out of the 13, there were 8 Southerners, 4 from California, two others from across the country. This is pretty typical of the lack of national representation.

It is good that Americans are supporting the military but let us not break our arms patting ourselves on the back either.