That gap will probably be much worse this time around then when we returned from the countries last longest war and occupation of choice, different in some ways similar in many others! For many reasons, some not having to do with this writers take,but he does touch the fringes of those disconnects, but as important. This time this military fought in two wars in two countries and not just one tour for most but multiple tours. The country uses words and symbols while not demanding that they Sacrifice for any of what was done, "In All Our Names"! Those that fully supported the walking away from Afghanistan and it's mission and promises to the Afghan people, especially their elected representatives, to invade and destroy another country and those people, run the fastest and furthest from any mention of 'They Sacrificing' as to the results of a decade of war, in two theaters, on just 1% of the population, their families included. They only use their words of 'support', flying flags with, when that need of their 'patriotism?' or troop support has to be shown. And the other 1% continues to get wealthier off their direct or indirect investments into anything Defense, even those who ordered it all and their backers near and far!
November 10, 2011 - The U.S. military and American society are drifting apart. It's tough inside the civilian world to discern the drift. But troops in all the military services sense it, smell it -- and talk about it. So do their superiors. We have a professional military of volunteers that has been stoically at war for more than a decade. But as the wars have droned on, the troops waging them are increasingly an Army apart.
This is the topic of my cover story in the dead-tree edition of Time out today – Veterans' Day eve. It's an important story, one that needs to be widely told. But because TIME keeps its print edition off the web for awhile, what follows is sort of a director's cut of what's in the magazine.
The civilian-military gap has taken on an edge recently, driven by the lack of sacrifice -- either in blood or treasure -- demanded of the rest of us compared to what the troops are giving. Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry recently earned the Medal of Honor for saving Ranger buddies from certain death in Afghanistan. He grabbed a live grenade and tossed it away as it blew up. It cost him his right hand. It happened on his seventh combat tour (he has since pulled an eighth). A roadside bomb killed Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij, husband and father of two, in Afghanistan Oct. 22. He was on his 14th combat deployment.
"There's no challenge for the 99% of the American people who are not involved in the military," says Army veteran Ron Capps, who served as an intelligence analyst in Afghanistan. "They don't lose when soldiers die overseas, they're not being forced to pay, for the wars, and there's no sense among the vast population of what we're engaged in."
Military leaders know the gap is widening, which leads to important questions: is this a bad thing? If it is, should we care? And if we should care, what can be done to reverse it? "I have this deep existential angst about a military organization within a democratic society that's as isolated from the rest of that society as our military is becoming," says Michael Desch, a political scientist and military expert at Notre Dame. "The gap can make civilian control of the military harder to achieve." read more>>>
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