Are Americans And Their Military Drifting Apart?

Newly commissioned officers celebrate their new positions by throwing their hats into the air as part of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2013 graduation and commissioning ceremony in Annapolis, Md., May 24, 2013. The "hat toss," now a traditional ending to the ceremony, originated at the Naval Academy in 1912. It has since become a symbolic and visual end to the four-year program. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Sam Shavers

Americans and Their Military, Drifting Apart -- Karl W. Eikenberry and David M. Kennedy, New York Times

STANFORD, Calif. — AFTER fighting two wars in nearly 12 years, the United States military is at a turning point. So are the American people. The armed forces must rethink their mission. Though the nation has entered an era of fiscal constraint, and though President Obama last week effectively declared an end to the “global war on terror” that began on Sept. 11, 2001, the military remains determined to increase the gap between its war-fighting capabilities and those of any potential enemies. But the greatest challenge to our military is not from a foreign enemy — it’s the widening gap between the American people and their armed forces.

Three developments in recent decades have widened this chasm. First and most basic was the decision in 1973, at the end of combat operations in Vietnam, to depart from the tradition of the citizen-soldier by ending conscription and establishing a large, professional, all-volunteer force to maintain the global commitments we have assumed since World War II. In 1776, Samuel Adams warned of the dangers inherent in such an arrangement: “A standing Army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the Liberties of the People. Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a Body distinct from the rest of the Citizens.”

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My Comment: When I read stories like this one .... I sometimes do not only wonder if Americans are drifting away from their military .... but are they drifting away from their history?