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July 7, 2003
Do you feel a draft?
As reports of rock-bottom morale roll in, military service is clearly not the attractive option it used to be--and not just because the odds look good that if you join, you will fight.
Maybe the support Mr. Bush has enjoyed among average Americans will finally be drained away by the bitterness and attrition among their uniformed children in Iraq. We can't expect young people to keep enlisting in sufficient numbers to keep our increasingly busy military all-volunteer--not when the present administration is so bad at understanding, defining, and implementing a sound mission for our soldiers.
Comments
based on one conversation with a army officer prior to the invasion of Iraq, the Clinton years were extremely demoralizing to the US military... of course he was no Clinton fan...
Posted by: thp at July 7, 2003 9:05 PM
That's true, and of course there was more to it than this, but there's a difference between veterans resenting serving under a president they believed was a "draft dodger" and the kind of low morale happening in Iraq.
Young people inclined to join the service probably weren't dissuaded from it by Clinton being in the White House, but I'd imagine a lot of them are thinking twice about it now, and not just because those soldiers look tired and hot and they're complaining and some of them are getting killed. On a basic level, it's clear that we're not sure what we're doing there right now, and that's no more appealing to a young tough looking to prove his mettle than it is to me.
Posted by: pk at July 8, 2003 8:13 PM