Has anybody read the book "AWOL: The Unexcused Absense of America's Upper Classes from Military Service", by Schaeffer and Douquette.

I read it some time ago, and found it quite enlightening on two fronts:

1) The level of antipathy members of the professional class have against the military. These people would not admit to it openly--they "support the troops." But the second their son decides to take the commission, their true feelings come out.

2) Much of this antipathy is at least partly related to an isolation between the military officers and the professional/chattering class.

I can personally attest to some of this, as I'm sure many others can who read this forum. My wife is a good Minnesota liberal of the Garrison Keillor variety. Her father is a university professor, and her mother is professional as well. Their circle of friends who have anything to do with the military are from the Vietnam cohort--no one more recent, and their thoughts/feelings are colored by the Vietnam experience. They have not been updated in 40 years!

Indeed, it's bad when I'm introduced as a Marine Captain, and they ask me how long it took for me to make Sergeant. They were trying to humor me by giving the impression that they knew something about the military. Their level of knowledge only betreyed their ignorance.

Their ignorance is their fault, but our responsibility to fix. If the military has any professional ethic at all, it needs to fix its reputation as the abode of neanderthals (true or not).

So, bottom line, I think that the military's social standing is certainly related to officer retention and recruiting. I'm not sure increased salaries are useful except to the extent that it brings social repute to attract talent and to re-integrate the military into professional society. Likewise, I don't think civilian masters degrees are particularly useful except to the extent that they improve the military skill set of the soldier and to the extent that they increase positive interaction between the professional class and the military officers. This is key if we are going to be prepared to fight wars with armies with backing from the entire population, not just rural conservatives.

AWOL addresses these issues. Highly recommended.

Pardon the length of this screed.