All-volunteer reality check
Published 6:53 pm Wednesday, October 20, 2010
As judges do their best to plunge the remains of “don’t ask, don’t tell” down the drain, elected officials stand moored safely aside like Ty-D-Bowl men in lifeboats.
Demonstrating courage and acting bravely are not part and parcel of everyone’s character. That’s why not everyone is fit to serve in the military. That’s why when a country depends on an all-volunteer military, it is insane to exclude qualified individuals who are willing to serve. Because the truth is the vast majority of us — 99 percent — don’t want to serve our country by joining the military.
And that’s OK. We just have to admit it. For every person who thinks gay Americans shouldn’t be able to serve, are you ready to take their place, or have your son or daughter take their place?
It’s not an idle question — pragmatism is pushing down the “don’t ask, don’t tell” walls faster than a commitment to social equality.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly took on this subject recently during a speech at Duke University.
While almost everyone supports our troops, most don’t actually know anyone serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, Gates told faculty and students at the elite university. Most Americans see military service as “something for other people to do,” he said.
The 2.4 million people serving in the armed forces today represent less than 1 percent of the country’s total population.
These are the same people who have served, and continue to serve, tours upon tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are the troops setting record suicide and divorce rates.
“Whatever their fond sentiments for men and women in uniform, for most Americans the war remains an abstraction — a distant and unpleasant series of news items that do not affect them personally,” Gates said.
(Now that sounds like “don’t ask, don’t tell.”)
Gates is right to encourage the best and brightest to consider military service. Because we live in a Navy town, in a state with many military installations, we are privileged to get glimpses of talented young people who plan to serve in the military, or who are serving. A sense of duty and giving back is not lost.
Most recently, Herald contributor Larry Henry wrote about the inspiring Jesse Montgomery, 19, of Monroe, who is in his second year at West Point.
Kudos to Gates for calling us on our complacency and hypocrisy.
He asked his Duke audience: “How long can these brave and broad young shoulders carry the burden that we — as a military, as a government, as a society — continue to place on them?”
