The Military/Civilian Disconnect

From Selena Zito, at the Pittsburgh Union-Tribune, "Our isolated military":

Six miles from downtown Pittsburgh, Sgt. Ryan Lane's youthful image is eternally captured on a banner with two American flags as its background. Dozens of the banners hang from street poles in the business district of Castle Shannon, Lane's hometown.

The 25-year-old, who was assigned to the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, was killed in a battle with Taliban forces in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

When he was brought home to be buried, mourners lined the streets of a neighboring community to honor him; most of them didn't know the young man whose flag-draped coffin was carried by fellow soldiers into the family church.

American soldiers are not forgotten in their communities. But they are a rapidly shrinking minority among their neighbors, because they are part of an all-volunteer military and because of our prickly political age of austerity in which base closings and consolidations have made the military a smaller component of fewer and fewer communities.

While governing elites are less and less likely to serve in the military themselves, citizens too are becoming less likely to interact with the military in their daily lives — which effectively isolates the military in American society.

The military has responded, in this time of war, by withdrawing into itself as a profession. That might allow it to maintain its fighting edge on the battlefield, but it does little good for civilian-military relations.

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