Recently a staffer for a purportedly major publication ignorantly asserted that the tattoo on the arm of a Marine Corps wounded warrior depicted a Nazi emblem. Said staffer was excoriated by many, so I'll not pile on. The episode does, however, highlight the general ignorance of and distance from our military.
Discounting for the moment the anti-military mindset of many on the left, there can be no argument that with less than one-half of one percent of our citizens serving in the military, ignorance of matters military abounds. It abounds because most families have no real experience with the military. Some have even written of this status that military service is becoming more and more a family business, with the sons and daughters of active duty and veterans forming the largest segment of new enlistments.
Whether or not that is accurate, the overwhelming simple ignorance of military service, indeed service to the country of any kind, is growing more and more foreign to generation after generation of Americans. Apart from the cultural ramifications, it is offered that there is a real national security concern.
It is all too easy for those ignorant of military service, either because they did not serve or their children do not serve, to advocate sending our military into harm's way. Such advocates do not, as the saying goes, have any skin in the game. They will gladly, even blithely speak of sending the sons and daughters of others overseas to take on our foes. And so the cycle perpetuates itself.
Fewer and fewer Americans serving in a military more and more often sent into harm's way by those more ignorant of and more distanced from the armed forces.
This is not a good situation for our nation.
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