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Wednesday, November 21, 2018

The US and the "Military-Civilian Divide

This is something I never expected to have to worry about, to think about: "...in a society with a dramatic and troubling cultural divide between civilian and military communities..."
As an economist, I concluded that the use of a draft to provide for a large percentage of the enlisted members of the military effectively operated to hold the wages of those folks down--because they could be compelled to serve. And that a voluntary military would require that we pay even the lowest-ranking folks with decent pay and benefits and living/working conditions.
Frankly, that conclusion seems to have been wrong. The base pay for the lowest-ranking military personnel is barely above the minimum wage (about $18,000 per year) and the promised post-enlistment benefits (education, specifically, which comes with both tuition/books, but also with a stipend--which is how my father afforded college after WW2) seem not to be funded, or provided in an expeditious manner. And (although I never wanted to be in the military, not then, not now, in retrospect), it's increasingly the case that the people in the military (a) come from families with generations of service, and largely through the service academies and (b) through heavy recruitment aimed at people whose other prospects are not appealing.
(In fact, I recently read, in the Indianapolis Star, that the military has been unable to meet its recruiting quotas in urban areas, with the consequence that the effective labor pool is becoming even more dominated by southern and rural northern enlistees.)
I have begun to wonder if we need to make changes (once again) in how we staff the military. Raising compensation so that military service becomes more attractive to more people? Reinstating the draft (which I would accept only if we also substantially increased compensation for those drafted)? I don't have an answer. And part of the question has to be what our real needs for military personnel are; are we trying to do more than we ought to be doing (are we, in the words of the old Phil Ochs songs, trying to be "the cops of the world")? But if the premise up there a the top is correct--if there is "a dramatic and troubling cultural divide between civilian and military communities", then we need to do something, and we need to do it now.

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