Should a Nation's Public Be Obligated to Share Military's Struggles?

COMMENTARY | An article by Jake Tapper, Richard Coolidge, and Sherisse Pham at ABC News' Political Punch reveals that only 1 percent of Americans serve in the military. Many military veterans are upset that so few Americans are knowledgeable about, or are even sympathetic to, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Critics complain American civilians are disassociated from their nation's military endeavors, with some completely unaffected by Iraq and Afghanistan while others have suffered dearly.

The sense of shared sacrifice we think of regarding World Wars I and II, and perhaps Korea, no longer exists today. Life here at home seems to continue uninterrupted by our military's actions abroad. If you stay away from news sources, as do many of the teenagers I see in my high-school classroom, you can almost forget our nation is expending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives fighting overseas. Our society and culture, unlike those of previous centuries, allows citizens to gain acclaim and esteem without ever serving in uniform.

It is regretful our general public remains so distanced from its military. With a nation's armed forces receiving only token accolades and occasional notice from the vast majority of its population, how can it remain an effective fighting machine? Without the heart and spirit gained by secure knowledge of a public's attention and respect, how can a military avoid becoming inefficient, uninspired, and ultimately dysfunctional?

My world history students are learning about World War I and the simultaneous Russian Revolution. Russia fared so poorly against the Germans on the eastern front of World War I because there was a disconnect between its public and its military, especially after the beginning of the Russian Revolution in March 1917. After that March, most of the public cared little for continuing to fight the Central Powers, making the swollen Russian army (which contained millions of men) nearly useless.

While the poorly equipped and poorly trained Russians faltered quickly against the well-prepared Germans in WWI, could the vaunted U.S. military really become a weakened force simply due to lack of public attention and acknowledgement? I believe so. How else can one explain America's inability to firmly secure Iraq or to provide much semblance of order in Afghanistan despite its vast coffers of funds and trainloads of state-of-the-art equipment?

Disassociating the general public (and perhaps getting rid of the draft in 1973) has made our nation weaker.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nations-public-obligated-share-militarys-struggles-230800512.html

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