Citizen Soldiers-Lawyers

I read a couple of interesting articles this morning. The first, by Kate Thornton Buzicky, a U.S. Army First Lieutenant currently attending Harvard Law School, is titled "Don't Serve / Don't Tell, The limits of liberal tolerance at Harvard Law School." The second is commentary on Lt. Buzicky's article by Tom Smith, a professor of law at the University of San Diego Law School (bio here). Professor Smith has this to say, in part:

On the one hand are these people who get paid barely enough to stay off food stamps, spend months and years away from their families and comforts such as edible food and air conditioning, and do a job that involves the risk of getting your limbs blown off, the flesh seared from your body, your sight and/or hearing permanently destroyed, and your psychic peace forever shattered, among other things worth mentioning. They do it so people like yours truly can live in beautiful San Diego and worry only slightly about some deranged fascist from some rathole in Butwhuckistan setting off a radiological bomb at a Padres game in the service of some bizarre religious fantasy.

...

That's on the one hand. On the other we have various law students and faculty who believe it is wrong for the military only to admit gays on the condition that they not be openly gay while in the military. The various law students and professors believe in this so strongly that they do not want military officers recruiting on their campuses, which they probably would not want in any event, because they don't like the military. In general, they find the military icky.

This brouhaha is all about the Solomon Amendment, more discussion about which may be found here. Basically, the Solomon Amendment requires federally-funded universities to open their doors to military recruiters at the risk of losing federal funds. Personally, I believe the Solomon Amendment is a "good thing," and I support it. Most liberals don't support the amendment, under the guise that the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays violates civil rights. I'm not gonna go there.

I'm concerned about the general public's, and more importantly, the "opinion makers" perception of the military. We see thousands of cars with "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers on them these days, but I'll bet if you asked a random sample of 100 mothers at your local mall if they would approve of their sons or daughters joining the military, the answer would be a resounding "no." You don't believe me? Consider this (source):

After twenty-seven years of the all-volunteer force, the majority of such elite civilians as government leaders, university professors, and corporate CEOs have never served in the armed forces, and many don't personally know someone in the military. At Duke, for example, the majority of students and faculty today haven't had a relative or a friend in the active-duty military. For some students in Feaver's seminar class, a year-end party screening of Saving Private Ryan was the closest they'd ever come to understanding military experience in combat. In this case, at least, lack of familiarity has bred misunderstanding, if not outright contempt. In the TISS study, 21 percent of the civilian non-veteran elites nationwide said they would be disappointed if one of their children joined the armed forces. Only 7 percent of military officers felt that way.

Troubling. America has, or had, a great tradition of citizen-soldiers. That tradition is disappearing, to our detriment. We can remedy this situation by increasing genuine support for the military, not by just delivering lip-service and bumper sticker support. And that support includes campus access for recruiters, ROTC detachments at every college with the enrollment to support the activity, and genuine approval of the military as a career choice.

Enlist today!