Might America’s current “volunteer” military service be neutralizing opposition to the nation’s war-making? An article in today’s Salon.com says that the U.S. may be lacking to will to protest its involvements abroad because of the resulting appearance of “support” for it’s antagonisms.
“Few probably recall the name Dwight Elliott Stone. But even if his name has faded from the national memory, the man remains historically significant. That’s because on June 30, 1973, the 24-year-old plumber’s apprentice became the last American forced into the armed services before the military draft expired.
“Though next month’s 40-year anniversary of the end of conscription will likely be as forgotten as Stone, it shouldn’t be. In operations across the globe, the all-volunteer military has been employed by policymakers to birth what Gen. George Casey recently called the “era of persistent conflict.” Four decades later, we therefore have an obligation to ask: How much of the public’s complicity in that epochal shift is a result of the end of the draft? Continue reading “Dissent, the draft, and today’s military”