Is the Army Just for the Poor and Lower Class?
During World War II, George Herbert Walker Bush, although the son of wealth and privilege, enlisted in the Navy as soon as he turned eighteen. He became the youngest pilot in the Navy and flew fifty-eight combat missions. The future president was fortunate to survive when his plane was hit Japanese anti-aircraft guns and two of his fellow crewmen perished. Film footage captured Bush’s rescue at by a submarine at sea, an enduring testament to his courage and commitment.
George H. W. Bush personified a generation of upper-class Americans willing to share the burdens of national defense. While many individuals doubtless exercised their influence and evaded combat during World War II, what is far more striking are the numbers of affluent Americans who heeded the call to service. General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. died shortly after D-Day in Normandy, where he is buried next to his brother Quentin, killed in World War I. President Franklin Roosevelt’s sons served in the armed forces. Former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, one of the nation’s wealthiest men, lost his namesake son over the skies of Europe and nearly lost his second son, John, in the seas of the South Pacific. The horrors of war did not spare the families of the American elites.
By the era of the Vietnam War, this had changed. Many sons of privilege did enlist and experience combat. Charles Robb, Lyndon Johnson’s son-in-law, was a Marine Corps company commander in Vietnam. Al Gore, the son of a Senator, served in Southeast Asia, albeit in a non-combat role. John Kerry went from Yale into the Navy. The experience of George W. Bush, however, far more personified the ethos of the era. American youth who had the influence, means, or know-how to avoid the war in Vietnam found ways to evade the conflict. As immortalized in Phil Ochs’s famous song, “Draft Dodger Rag,” young men sought deferments in a myriad of creative ways. They reasoned, as Ochs sang, “If someone’s got to go over there, That someone isn’t me.”
For those who did not qualify for health, hardship, or student deferments, entry into the National Guard or Army Reserve offered an alternative. It was common knowledge that these units would rarely if ever be called to combat in Vietnam. Occasionally the enlistment rolls for these units opened up and those in the right place and right time could get in. (Personal confession: I joined the Army Reserve at just such a juncture in 1969. For most of my outfit, the primary activity was figuring out how many meetings and summer camps we could skip without being activated.) More often there were long waiting lists and only those with luck or pull could gain access and thereby become inoculated from true military service. Units like the Texas Air National Guard that welcomed George W. Bush became havens for people whose families had the influence to keep them out of the war.
The Vietnam War brought an end to the draft and replaced it with a professional military. National Guard and reserve units are now staffed not by fortunate sons and daughters dodging combat, but by volunteers. These groups have shared the brunt of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq with the regular military.
In the absence of a draft, the concept of service has deteriorated even further. Does anyone even consider asking a member of the nation’s elites to defend their country? Are any of George H.W. Bush’s grandchildren in the armed forces? This scenario extends to the United States Congress, where no more than a handful of senators and congressmen— Democrat or Republican, supporters or foes of the war— have children in the military. Nor do the ranks of current war combatants appear to include the sons and daughters of any prominent business figures or media pundits who promote the current administration’s policies.
This progression from participation to evasion to near total absence bodes poorly for the future defense of America in the age of terror. When leaders of the past evoked the concept of shared sacrifice, few could doubt their sincerity. Sacrifice today is shared by a dwindling pool of citizens, most of them drawn from less affluent ranks of society. How long will soldiers follow where their leaders dare not go?