There is a line I hear from anti-war people who believe they can neatly separate their condemnation of the war from criticism of the volunteers in our army: “I support the troops; I don’t support the war.” Hearing this said has always bothered me deeply because the dual sentiment seems truly impossible to have unless one believes that either 1) The soldiers fighting today are somehow compelled or otherwise there against their better judgment, or 2) The soldiers fighting today fight willingly and chose to willingly, but only because they were somehow “duped” by their superiors.

One cannot believe that members of our armed forces fight in part because they were compelled or tricked, without taking something away from their choice to serve.

More to the point that is crucial for us to wrestle with now, before the troops come home: if either of the above is a belief about reasons for serving and those who serve that lurks quietly in your heart, I beg that you confront it before the end of this war. Was it Jeff that mentioned the term cognitive dissonance? Can anyone imagine the cognitive dissonance that will occur if 130,000+ soldiers return home to a population that offers, “Thank you for your service. Personally, though, I wish no one had had to do what you did, and I believe you and others like you were the victims of trickery”? I am glad that Americans at large recognize the need to not repeat the end of Vietnam, but in my mind we are a lot closer to that danger than we realize when we “support” the troops but have as much understanding for the decision to serve as is given in

If you want your kids to do good NOW, have them join the Peace Corp or something. I don’t understand why any rational parent with kids who have great alternative options (as almost any Williams grad does) would encourage their kid to join the military so long as this administration is in place. Hence, unsurprising that hardly anyone does.

Jeff’s language above is likely careless, in that it states “I don’t understand . . . hence, unsurprising that hardly anyone does.” I don’t think he meant to say that, but it is a slip that is telling about the “me, therefore everyone” way we all think, a way that will be dangerous to our society in the very near future. We think that, because you and I see nothing to die for in a given context, no other rational being possibly could.

If you, for some reason, have an interest in how I think, read below the break. It is extremely long.

Look, I’m sure everyone with a comment in the cited post could somehow explain how their sentiment is more nuanced then this, explain how my criticism doesn’t apply. But can we admit that there are probably more reasons than just “Williams students have more opportunities” and “Williams students are savvy about politicians” that explain why we don’t serve? When America still had yet to hear the “truth” about the impetus for war, when we approached war in 2003, it is not as though we had markedly more Williams students enlisting then, nor did we have markedly more enlisting for the war in Afghanistan.

I believe above all in there being many factors behind every human decision, and I am sure that economics and suspicion about the government’s motives are a major factor in Williams grads not being in the armed services. But I want to expose the doublethink that one has to have when one says he “supports the troops” but also believes that it is suspicion of the government, wise recognition of the bigger picture of the war, that keeps Williams students out of the army. It is equivalent to saying that those who do enlist are incapable of, or less likely to be, as rationally critical. Jeff wrote, “Dying for a cause that is ultimately unjust does not make the soldier who risks his life any less patriotic, any less brave, any less noble.” He is right, but he and others leave out “intelligent” and “reasonable” from the list, and I worry about that, especially for us of a segment of society that just might value intelligence above nobility and honor. Not explicitly, but in a whole hell of a lot of what we do and cultivate our children to do.

I know the common answer to this is to point to the huge number of extremely impoverished people who serve, who in fact indisputably form the backbone of the army in the form of enlisted men (the term that connotes a soldier who is not an officer). Some seem to say that economics force them to join and opportunity allows others not to, and that if only they did not need the money many of these people would be capable of following the same line of rational thought that keeps Williams grads out. Well, no one will argue that a huge motivator for joining the army is steady pay and large advances, that the army recruits knowing this, and recruits more successfully in poor areas especially in the South. (This is, by the way, as it has been for a long, long time, far earlier than Sept 11th or Bush’s office. If you have a model for how America can raise an army of the size it needs to protect itself and the world—or do you think we need to massively shrink our army?—without ending up with a bulk force of lower-class enlistees, please share). Yes, it is a damn ugly thing to see a recruiter browbeat 18 year olds to fill the ranks, and the demographics of the army at large are undeniable. But does this explain why liberal arts college grads do or don’t join?

I honestly believe that our choice, the choice of a small subset of the American population and why our choice differs hugely from other segments, is due to how we are cultured, and far less to the opportunities we have. How many of us even got as far as rejecting service for the reasons Jeff and others outline? I sure never got as far as even thinking about it for myself. If many are like me, I think it’s quite reasonable of David Kane to do what he does: try to present joining the armed services as a legitimate option for Williams grads (though, as usual, he could do it with a whole lot less in-your-faceness if he really wanted success as opposed to controversy).

Yes, it is noble to serve in the Peace Corps, and pursue other lines of work when you do so because you think it is your calling to improve the world. This is beyond argument here, and it does not impact our need to understand why we pursue some callings less per capita than do other segments of our society. I don’t believe that economic reasons or (as I’ve tried to demonstrate that some quietly believe) the [superior abilities of liberal arts students and parents to sense the lies of politicians] explain why our graduates rarely serve.

FroshMom, I can see why you objected when David restricted his question to “the Williams context,” and we don’t need to do that. But I think it is reasonable to assume that the great bulk of Ephblog has far more knowledge of men and women with college degrees—those who become officers in the army, not enlisted men—so if we are going to discuss motives, it seems reasonable to restrict our question to officers. Now we are talking just about college graduates, whom I think it is fair to say, whatever society they hail from, have as a class far greater choices for economic success than their non-degreed peers. So why is there still a huge per capita difference between the number of officers coming from the Northeast and the number from the South, etc.? This, I think, sweeps aside other explanations for why Americans volunteer to serve, and leaves behind the simple fact that the culture of the Northeast and the colleges we discuss here on Ephblog is—relative to most other population segments—anti-military and anti-war (read how, in Jeff’s last comment, he makes synonymous, without qualification, “encouraging Ephs to enlist” and “jingoistic militarism”). We were raised to doubt that force is ever a necessary means to a good end. We were raised to see the military as something that is not a truly considerable choice for us in life, and only a small few of us come to see otherwise.

As you may have guessed by now, I know someone in the military: my younger brother is a lieutenant. He commissioned only a year ago and has not yet been to Iraq, but my family’s coming to understand his decision to serve and very personal understanding of what kind of man (boy) chooses to serve today began six years ago, when he made his decision and somehow stayed the course through huge, indescribable fights with everyone else in the family. I guess I am guilty of the enormous fallacy of extrapolating a lot from one data point, but I know for a fact that a lot of those I talk to (more often: hear talking at me) about this topic are extrapolating from even fewer, and Danny has constantly striven to get the opinions of as many soldiers as he can talk to. Through him I have had access to his officer peers from U Delaware and elsewhere, people who are making the decision we discuss here, and did so within the current reality of “pointless war.”

Finally, Jeff writes:

There is a reason that despite a terrible economy and the largest group of 18 year olds in our nation’s history, the military is struggling with recruiting — because countless kids and their parents have made the exact same calculous that I am advocating. That makes them no less brave or patriotic than the millions who signed up for WW II: it just means that, for them, one cause was far more worthy.

I don’t agree. The calculus not to join the army now is far simpler: you have the highest realized chance of dying in the course of your work than an enlistee has ever had in recent years. What other job comes with that disincentive? Yet let’s not even take a step down the road to comparing ourselves to the society that prosecuted World War II. Our far more proper point of comparison is the generation that fought in Vietnam, and failed to welcome and reintegrate the soldiers when they came home. When that day comes, that crucial task will be ours in the home front, and less the soldiers’. I hope by then that we have resolved in ourselves what I see as quiet hypocrisies about “supporting the troops” but not supporting the cause or manner of fighting for it that they choose to adopt.