This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
I still remember my parents singing the World War I-era song:
"You're in the Army now,
You're not behind a plough,
You'll never get rich,
You son of a b*tch,
You're in the Army now."
My father volunteered for what was then the Army Air Corps right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As is still true, it wasn't seen as a particularly lucrative or upwardly mobile way of getting ahead, even if it was a patriotic act at the time. These days, however, there's an exception to that rule about never getting rich in the Army: become a general and the next thing you know " powie! " you've retired onto the board of Raytheon or some other giant weapons maker and upped your cash value immeasurably. In other words, you've become part of the remarkably lucrative revolving door between the U.S. military and the industrial part of the military-industrial complex and you're on easy street.
Still, in the twenty-first century, for most troops sent to fight in pointless, losing wars abroad and possibly struggling afterwards with PTSD at home, the military hasn't exactly been a winner, as TomDispatch regular and co-founder of the invaluable Costs of War Project Andrea Mazzarino suggests today.
Behind the plough? Maybe not in 2022. But "in the Army now"? Well, not that either, which couldn't be more curious " a subject Mazzarino explores " in a military that Congress never stops over-funding in a mind-boggling fashion. Tom
A Military Rich in Dollars, Poor in People
And the Frayed Social Safety Net That Goes With It
The American military is now having trouble recruiting enough soldiers. According to the New York Times, its ranks are short thousands of entry-level troops and it's on track to face the worst recruitment crisis since the Vietnam War ended, not long after the draft was eliminated.
Mind you, it's not that the military doesn't have the resources for recruitment drives. Nearly every political figure in Washington, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, invariably agrees on endlessly adding to the Pentagon's already staggering budget. In fact, it's nearly the only thing they seem capable of agreeing on. After all, Congress has already taken nearly a year to pass a social-spending package roughly half the size of this year's defense budget, even though that bill would mitigate the costs of health care for so many Americans and invest in clean energy for years to come. (Forget about more money for early childhood education.)
Nor is the Pentagon shy about spending from its bloated wallet to woo new recruits. It's even cold-calling possible candidates and offering enlistment bonuses of up to $50,000.
As it happens, though, its recruiters keep running into some common problems that either prevent young people from enlisting or from even wanting to do so, including the poor physical or mental health of all too many of them, their mistrust of the government (and its wars), and the recent pandemic-related school closures that made it so much harder for recruiters to build relationships with high-school kids. Many of these recruitment issues are also all-American ones, related to the deteriorating quality of life in this country. From a basic standard of living to shared values or even places where we might spend much time together, we seem to have ever less connecting us to each other. In a nation where friendships across socioeconomic classes are vital to young peoples' access to new opportunities, this ought to trouble us.
Playing Alone
When I arrived to pick my kids up from camp recently, an elementary school classmate playing basketball with them was yelling "This is for Ukraine!" as he hurled the ball towards the hoop. It promptly bounced off the backboard, landing on a child's head just as he was distracted by a passing bird. Another mother and I exchanged playful winces. Then we waited a few more minutes while our kids loped back and forth between the hoops, not really communicating, before taking our charges home.
By the time I had gotten my young kids signed up for a camp so that my spouse, an active-duty military officer, and I could continue our work lives this summer, basketball was all that was left. The sun often baked the courts so that less time was spent outside playing and more time talking, while trying to recover from the heat. Though our children were new to group activities, having largely engaged in distance learning during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, they did find a couple of things to talk about with the other kids that reflected our difficult world. "Mommy," said my seven year old when we got home one day, "a kid said Russia could nuclear bomb us. Could they?" On another occasion, he asked, "Is Ukraine losing?"
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