The Best Army We Can Buy (NYTimes)

[kentuck]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/opinion/25kennedy.html

<snip>
THE United States now has a mercenary army. To be sure, our soldiers are hired from within the citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom George III recruited to fight against the American Revolutionaries. But like those Hessians, today's volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits - a compensation package that may not always be commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify.

<snip>
But the modern military's disjunction from American society is even more disturbing. Since the time of the ancient Greeks through the American Revolutionary War and well into the 20th century, the obligation to bear arms and the privileges of citizenship have been intimately linked. It was for the sake of that link between service and a full place in society that the founders were so invested in militias and so worried about standing armies, which Samuel Adams warned were "always dangerous to the liberties of the people."

<snip>
This is not a healthy situation. It is, among other things, a standing invitation to the kind of military adventurism that the founders correctly feared was the greatest danger of standing armies - a danger made manifest in their day by the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Jefferson described as having "transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm."

Some will find it offensive to call today's armed forces a "mercenary army," but our troops are emphatically not the kind of citizen-soldiers that we fielded two generations ago - drawn from all ranks of society without respect to background or privilege or education, and mobilized on such a scale that civilian society's deep and durable consent to the resort to arms was absolutely necessary
...more

[Supersedeas]

1. another unspoken truth about re-enlistment packages

[atreides1]

2. Many Unspoken Truths about the Military, Period!!!!

There are many unspoken truths about the current U.S. military, like the police who are constantly regarded as heros because of what NYPD
officers did on 9/11, the military is given the same pass.

No matter what the military does, dropping artillery on hospitals, helicopter gunships attacking wedding parties, bombing a city into
rubble.

Very few call them on what they do, most here always put the blame on the administration, well let's be honest with ourselves. As long as the military follows the orders, they are just as guilty of the
crimes be committed.

Just like the get away driver in a bank robbery, the driver doesn't kill anyone, doesn't even fire his gun, but when the bank robbers are caught all of them including the driver are charged with the crime of murder and face the death penalty.

The only difference here is that the military is a willing participant, and they can always use that standard excuse of "I was
just following orders", and many here allow them to get away with that.

So you see there are many unspoken truths about the military that most here refuse to acknowledge, and in some cases even choose to ignore.

Bush and his cabal may have started this illegal war, but the military is in most cases a willing participant, I will freely admit that some in uniform think this is wrong, but the majority of them just go along to get along. We have seen those who are truly brave and courageuos, they have been court martialed, imprisoned, and all for just doing what is right.