The following story was submitted by Armstrong Williams.

In a recent column, I observed that only one of the 535 members of
Congress has a child or grandchild in the armed services. I suggested
that certain parts of our society, particularly the upper-middle class
elite, which supplies so much of our political class, lack an
appreciation for the qualities of the military – discipline, sacrifice
and egalitarianism. The major implication is that America’s well-to-do
feel that armed service is somehow not worth their time. I asked
readers whether the growing divide between the civilian and military
life and the rich troubled them and poor.

Apparently, the column circulated in, through and around military
bases across the country and overseas. Responses came – no poured -
in. The overwhelming majority of them were deeply disturbed by the
lack of military service amongst America’s rich.

A few respondents, however, felt otherwise. One reader, obviously not
the sort to ruin a perfectly good stereotype, said his experience as a
software engineer working on military contracts led him to believe
that military personnel lacked the creative instincts to “think
outside the box.” He said that the military was a great equalizer for
the poor, but that the military experience was not the best setting to
cultivate one’s intellectual or creative instincts. The well-to-do, he
concluded, would be better served in the private sector, where they
could make an equally important contribution to the defense and
economic well-being of this country.

His response was typical of those respondents that dismissed military
service, insofar as it seems to depend on two crucial assumptions: 1)
military people are not very creative. That any character traits -
real or perceived – are the result of the military experience, as
opposed to the quality of people presently attracted to the military;
2) That the military experience, with its rigidly defined hierarchy
and emphasis on following orders forever stifles creativity. “The
military cannot be creative,” the reader responded. “If they did, it
would be a scary thing.” Presumably, the reader was referring to “the
grunts” that carry out the hard physical work of combat. As to whether
such an experience irreparably damages ones creative spirit, that
certainly didn’t seem to be the case with most of the great novelists
of this century, many of whom served in either the two world wars or
the Vietnam conflict.

When you realize that these arguments against serving in the military
are based on social and cultural assumptions – mostly of the elitist
variety – you realize that the arguments against military service
begin to sound a lot like the arguments that used to be hurled against
women. For centuries, people would look at the lack of artistic and
political output by women and assert that as proof of their inherent
inferiority. Never mind that women were relegated to the private
sphere, denied extensive schooling and mentors to cultivate their
talents and social interactions to develop their vocabulary and their
subjective sense of self. They were even denied the reasonable
expectation of success. Similarly, we seem to have reached a point
where intelligent, wealthy and fairly well-to-do citizens are not
expected to go into the military service, and so they do not. They
then look at the dearth of such people – upper-middle-class, pseudo
intellectuals – in the military as proof that the military experience
does not cultivate these talents.

Several readers found this divide between the civilian and military
life and the rich and poor to be so pervasive as to threaten the
well-being of the republic. As one reader wrote, “From a historical
aspect, civilizations that prospered have always been the ones where
everybody believes they have an obligation to contribute to the
foundation of their society, with the elite believing they were most
obligated. What happens though is that as a society prospers, people
lose their sense of obligation and begin to believe they are owed an
obligation. Unfortunately, all democracies that have failed (and all
of them have failed, most lasting no longer than 200 years), have
failed because its citizens quit feeding the foundation and turn to
feeding off the foundation by giving themselves benefits, like
unaffordable tax breaks or unaffordable social benefits. The rot has
almost always started with the elite and has always worked itself down
to the lower classes until that society became thoroughly corrupt.”

Several other readers drew allusions to the fall of Rome: “My concern
is that the all-volunteer military, along with ever greater
polarization of society (and the political class) and the
Balkanization of the nation, will eventually carry this nation to the
same conclusion as the other great republic in history – Rome. An
American Caesar may arise someday who will take command just as surely
as Julius Caesar did 2,000 years ago. It might not happen during our
lifetime, but it will likely happen eventually, given the path we have
chosen.”

I do not believe that there is a realistic possibility that the
American military can, or ever would, even contemplate the assumption
of explicit political power. The ties to the people, and the deep
endowment of American character, absolutely preclude it. Or, as
historian Richard H. Kohn observed: “The American Constitution, with
its division of powers and authority, its checks and balances, has
succeeded not only in defending the nation against all enemies foreign
and domestic, but in upholding the liberty it was meant to preserve.
No military force in the United States has ever risen up to challenge
constitutional procedures or the Constitution itself, nor has any
political leader, so far as is known, ever attempted to use military
force against the Constitution.”

As for the suggestion that we re-institute a draft, I would note that
one of the great benefits of our democracy is that the citizens have
the right to do nothing. This right is essential to the functioning of
our democracy, as is the need for our society to keep at least some
distance between military and politics, lest the military soon become
an instrument of tyranny.

Another reader offered a more pragmatic reason for maintaining at
least some divide between the military and political classes: “All
these forms of service – military, education and, perhaps, even
research – have to be paid for, and that requires a robust economy,
which in turn requires that somebody in the private sector is minding
the store by actually making money doing something private that is
profitable. Maybe the real question is simply whether our collective
efforts make a healthy, balanced concord of free men and women.”

Well put. Though I still fear that if the divide gets much greater, it
will be because our society has achieved the sort of cultural
decadence that usually precedes the fall.