On this Memorial Day the LA Times has an eyeopening article on the the relationship between members of the military and the civilian population. When my father served during WWII there were few who were not involved in the effort. Everyone knew someone who was serving. When I served in the military during the Vietnam war there was a draft and once again very few did not know someone who served. That connection between the warriors and the civilian population was severed with the all volunteer military.
Jvano Graves’ parents begged him not to join the Army right out of high school in 2003, when U.S. troops were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But their son refused his parents’ pleas to try college. He followed them both into the Army instead.
Last June, 11 years later, Staff Sgt. Jovano Graves returned home from Afghanistan, joining his mother, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Sonia Graves-Rivers, for duty here at Ft. Bragg.
“My family, going way, way back, has always felt so proud to be Americans,” said Graves-Rivers, who comes from a family in which military service spans six generations, starting with her great-great-grandfather, Pfc. Marion Peeples, who served in a segregated black unit during World War I.
Her father, Cpl. Harvey Lee Peeples, fought in the Vietnam War. Her uncle, Henry Jones, was career Air Force. Another uncle, Sgt. 1st Class Robert Graves, spent 22 years in the Army. Her sister, Janice, served 24 years.
“In our family, there’s a deep sense that being American means serving — showing gratitude by giving back to your country,” Graves-Rivers said.
Multi-generational military families like the Graveses form the heart of the all-volunteer Army, which increasingly is drawing its ranks from the relatively small pool of Americans with historic family, cultural or geographic connections to military service.
I must admit that I don’t personally know anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan with the exception of my cousin’s son who is an MP bodyguard for Pentagon dignitaries and was rarely on the ground long and even less likely to be in danger.
While civilians may have yellow ribbons on their cars and mouth support for the troops the civilian and military populations are more than ever living in separate world.
“The last decade of war has affected the relationship between our society and the military,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a commentary in 2013. “As a nation, we’ve learned to separate the warrior from the war. But we still have much to learn about how to connect the warrior to the citizen…. We can’t allow a sense of separation to grow between us.”
Dempsey’s comments reflect a growing concern in the military that reintegrating service members into communities whose understanding of war is gleaned largely from television may be as difficult as fighting the war.
I don’t know about you but I find this unhealthy – we have created a warrior class separated from the civilian population.
Amanda rushed forward, a twin tucked into the crook of each arm. Aaron swept up all three. “I love you,” he said. He cupped Amanda’s face in both hands for a long, passionate kiss. She broke down and sobbed as the band played “The Army Goes Rolling Along.”
These scenes play out across America as the troops flock home, but they happen behind the locked gates of military bases, largely unseen by the civilian world.
Increasingly, those bases have become fortresses. Base closures have consolidated troop populations onto a dozen large “joint” bases and other huge installations like Ft. Bragg, home to 55,000 soldiers and their 74,000 dependents.
Bases often feature their own shopping centers, movie theaters, restaurants and ball fields. Troops board planes for distant conflicts on their airfields and return wounded to their hospitals. Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the bases are largely off-limits to civilians.
“Military bases are our most exclusive gated communities,” said Phillip Carter, an Iraq veteran who directs the Military, Veterans and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.
The Schades, like two-thirds of Ft. Bragg families, live outside the base. But most of their neighbors are military or ex-military.
The Army’s influence in Fayetteville is so pervasive — as in many towns near big military bases in America — that it’s often hard to tell where the military ends and the civilian world begins.
It would appear the days of the citizen soldier are a thing of the past. We have instead a warrior class – a potentially dangerous thing. If the civilian population does not consider military personnel to be part of their society the military personnel are bound to feel the same thing.
Image via shutterstock.