Robert Gates Wants You … and Your Children
The defense secretary warned Duke University, and anyone else who would listen, about a growing divide between the public and the military that has created a minority class of professional military workers and a detached, if vaguely supportive, civilian population.
The defense secretary warned Duke University, and anyone else who would listen, about a growing divide between the public and the military that has created a minority class of professional military workers and a detached, if vaguely supportive, civilian population.
Gates said most Americans think of fighting as “something for other people to do” and said, “There is a risk over time of developing a cadre of military leaders that politically, culturally and geographically have less and less in common with the people they have sworn to defend.”
He was short on solutions, but the secretary suggested more attractive pay and benefits.
Alternatively, we could try not fighting multiple wars at the same time.
Gates’ full remarks, which were delivered Wednesday, can be read here. — PZS
Your support matters…AP via Google:
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.
Even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, for most Americans “service in the military — no matter how laudable — has become something for other people to do,” he added.
Independent journalism is under threat and overshadowed by heavily funded mainstream media.
You can help level the playing field. Become a member.
Your tax-deductible contribution keeps us digging beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that unearths what's really happening- without compromise.
Give today to support our courageous, independent journalists.
Opinion
Where’s the headline-making outrage over the never-ending travesty of Gitmo?
Opinion
We both have the same enemies but spend most of the time ignoring that fact.
Wounds of War
Remembering the day that a war designed never to end began.
Global Voices
Crisscrossed by heroin transit routes from neighboring Afghanistan, the country’s youth confront a growing opioid epidemic.
Courts & Law
UN special rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin noted that the US treatment of detainees was “cruel, inhuman and degrading.”
Middle East
Amid a severe drought, Afghan scientists are asking the international community to engage with the brutal new regime.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.