The United States has a long tradition of "citizen soldiers" - ordinary men and women who step up and do the ugly job of soldiering when the nation is in need. That tradition began with the so-called "minutemen" of the revolutionary era, who stopped plowing their fields, picked up their muskets, and answered their nation's call, and it continues to the present day.
We do not, at least until the modern era, have a tradition of a large standing army ... indeed, the Founders worried that such a force could be used to oppress the citizens, rather than defend them. When we needed a big army, we built it, and once the need was gone, we sent the soldiers home and relied on a smaller force that could be augmented if needed. At the outbreak of the First World War, the U.S. Army (including the National Guard) had a strength of about 200,000 and was the ninth-largest army in the world ... vastly inferior to the armies of England, France, Germany, and Imperial Russia. At the outbreak of the Second World War, it ranked 19th in size, smaller than the army of Portugal and slightly ahead of powerhouse Bulgaria.
Of course, our armed forces grew dramatically with the introduction of conscription for the World Wars and continuing through Vietnam, reaching a strength of about 12 million at the height of World War II and 800,000 at the end of the Vietnam War in 1973. Disgust with Vietnam led to the end of conscription in January, 1973 ... since then, we've been an all-volunteer force that today consists of about 480,000 active duty troops and another 524,000 in the National Guard and Reserve, even as the nation fought new wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and other places.
My point with this little, off-the-cuff history lesson is that we are now, as we have been through most of our history, a nation of citizen soldiers.
Which brings me to the current Secretary of Defense (not War), who has a vision not of an army of citizens reluctantly but bravely doing a dirty job for a nation in peril, but of a supremely lethal force of clean-shaven, chiseled, testosterone-oozing giants unencumbered by useless distractions like law and morality. I am horrified at what he has done to the honorable tradition memorably documented by historian Steven Ambrose in his wonderful books "Citizen Soldiers" and "Band of Brothers." I am especially horrified that there appears to be actual discussion among our national "leaders" that our citizen soldiers might be employed to ensure the desired outcome of our elections - something we might once have thought happened only in the banana-est of banana republics. Indeed, there was consternation earlier this month in Washington, DC, when armed National Guard troops were photographed at an official ballot drop box.
As you head to the polls on November 3rd (if you didn't vote early), think about the type of nation you want to live in, and ask yourselves how comfortable you are with the idea of our citizen soldiers being used to still your voice.
Choose wisely.
Have a good day. More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
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