Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
wm,

And that's one of the major problems as a result of the divergence thesis in military culture and the public. If the military is self-selecting (which it is) and the fastest growing demographics in the country are not a part of that self-selection (which they aren't), then several things can happen: the military can become socially (and eventually politically) isolated or its values can change. The military has proved to be a resilient institution of the years and it has adapted, if slowly, to many of society's evolving expectations - from integration, to women in the services, to the all-volunteer force. Are the values and norms of the military today the same as it was in 1776? Will it be the same in 20 years? The military is going to change and the leadership it needs to be proactive in directing that process rather than having it imposed on them.
When you make the decision to put on a uniform and serve this country in its military, whatever set of values you previously had needs to be checked at the door. Some people enter the service with the same set of values the services have, or an even more stringent set, but I'd guess that for most people it requires a more stringent set of values than they previously lived under.

The self-selecting portion of society to which you refer is the segment of society which is most willing to live their lives under those circumstances. Frankly, the military has no use for people who are not willing to live in those circumstances.

For some reason, you seem to believe that military values should change with the times? In what way? In its most basic form, agreement to serve requires a willingness to do what other people tell you to do, in many situations unquestioningly, with the potential consequences of doing so up to and including your life/severe debilitating injury. For not all that much money.

Doing that requires a certain set of values which, IMO, is not going to change with time. I see little evidence to suggest that you're going to get a demographic of people who are not historically drawn to this to get into it.