Bill,

In "all volunteer" do you include the fewer and fewer opportunities for h.s. graduates, accelerating since 1980?

Do you include the "volunteers" that do so to get health insurance for a kid already on the way?

Do you include the "volunteers" who are told (with subtle caveats, or sometimes not) by recruiters that they can pick the specialty and then get their education paid for after they get out?

The volunteer army was created to keep the middle class quiet.

That doesn't mean that there are not individuals there who are indeed there to serve their country. It is also true that boot camp and army life in general creates an environment where "belonging" becomes emotionally meaning: as any prolonged, isolated, stressful group experience creates in individuals, in fact.

Hank

>>>You have a point, but it's a bit more complex.
>>>
>>>Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded by an all-volunteer force. Those people asked to be there.
>>You could say the same of WW1 and WW2
>
>Actually most of the US soldiers in WWII were draftees.
>That was also true in Korea and Vietnam.
>Since Vietnam we've had all volunteer military.
>A career military person knows that the fastest way to advance a career is in combat.
>Eisenhower - who graduated at the top of his class at West Point, was a major languishing in the Philippines before WWII broke out and was ready to resign his commission because he saw no path forward.
>WWII came along and we know what happened.
>I belong to a vet's group here and we invited active duty guys to come and talk to us during the Iraq war. They were, of course, all volunteers. One was a West Point grad who had done two tours in Iraq.
>To a person, they couldn't wait to get back in action but it was more than ambition that was driving them.
>You could tell that these guys really missed their comrades and that life.
>
>On the other hand, I spent a lot of time with draftees during the Korean war.
>Those guys counted the days till their tours ended and they could get back home.
>They even had an acronym for it:
>FIGMO
>Farewell, I got my orders!