Blogs to Watch

[zenpundit]

Geitner Simmons, Editorial Page editor of The Omaha World Herald and blogger at Regions of Mind has a post up featuring an interview with Robert Kaplan, author of Imperial Grunts.

An excerpt:

"TAE: Why do so many reporters, academics, and some everyday Americans think that people who go into the Army or Marines must be folks who didn't have bright prospects in college or the civilian work force?

Kaplan: To be diplomatic, I think it's class prejudice and snobbery. Because most of the people I meet in the lower ranks aren't poor or from the ghetto — they're the solid working class, which does still exist. They're from non-trendy places in between the two coasts, or from working-class urban neighborhoods.

Look, for example, at one of the Special Forces teams I was with in Algeria. The executive officer, a graduate of The Citadel, was from a farming family in Indiana. The master sergeant was from a farming family in New Hampshire. The warrant officer grew up in an Italian section of Queens, New York. That's America. Whites in the barracks get very insulted if you confuse them with so-called white trash, and African Americans in the barracks get tremendously insulted if you confuse them with people in the inner city. With both groups, some of them may have come from the underclass, but they've long since separated themselves from it. They have no class envy."

[Merv Benson]

One of my enduring memories of my time in the Marine Corps is the high quality of the people I encountered. When I went to OCS I was impressed with the intelligence and quality of the other candidates. I had similar experience when I worked with the troops in Vietnam. My observation of our current forces suggest if anything the quality has improved.