The seductive allure of wars we’re not winning
By Andrew J. Bacevich, WashPost, Published: April 11
Andrew J. Bacevich is a military historian at Boston University and the author of “Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country.”
For better or worse, ours is today a warlike nation that depends on volunteers to fill the ranks of its armed forces. Young men and women have a variety of motives for signing up. No doubt some do so for high-minded, even idealistic reasons. For many, however, more pragmatic considerations figure: a job with salary and benefits, a chance to escape from a humdrum or dispiriting existence. In all likelihood, few volunteers know what they are getting into, particularly in wartime. Fully disclosing what service in a distant war zone might entail is not a high priority for recruiters trying to fill their monthly quota of warm and willing bodies.
Even so, the new Washington Post poll of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans shows that, looking back, most of today’s veterans find no cause to regret their decision to join. Nearly nine out of 10 would do so again. Indeed, a majority of those who participated in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars profess to “miss” something they experienced there.
What they miss is not the chance to kill jihadists, pursuant to spreading democracy and the American way of life, but comradeship experienced in the midst of trying circumstances. In that regard, of course, today’s veterans do not differ greatly from prior generations. However mystifying to those who have never spent any appreciable time in uniform, the bonds formed between soldiers in the course of wartime service — and even on occasion in service other than in wartime — have an immediacy and intimacy seldom found in other walks of life.
(More here.)
Andrew J. Bacevich is a military historian at Boston University and the author of “Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country.”
For better or worse, ours is today a warlike nation that depends on volunteers to fill the ranks of its armed forces. Young men and women have a variety of motives for signing up. No doubt some do so for high-minded, even idealistic reasons. For many, however, more pragmatic considerations figure: a job with salary and benefits, a chance to escape from a humdrum or dispiriting existence. In all likelihood, few volunteers know what they are getting into, particularly in wartime. Fully disclosing what service in a distant war zone might entail is not a high priority for recruiters trying to fill their monthly quota of warm and willing bodies.
Even so, the new Washington Post poll of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans shows that, looking back, most of today’s veterans find no cause to regret their decision to join. Nearly nine out of 10 would do so again. Indeed, a majority of those who participated in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars profess to “miss” something they experienced there.
What they miss is not the chance to kill jihadists, pursuant to spreading democracy and the American way of life, but comradeship experienced in the midst of trying circumstances. In that regard, of course, today’s veterans do not differ greatly from prior generations. However mystifying to those who have never spent any appreciable time in uniform, the bonds formed between soldiers in the course of wartime service — and even on occasion in service other than in wartime — have an immediacy and intimacy seldom found in other walks of life.
(More here.)
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