Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures'

[Tacitus]

What's even sadder is when the 20-something Expert staffers brief the Congressmen with material gathered from reading CRS reports which were written by other folks who quite often have little or no hands on experience themselves.

I am just curious how anyone expects more people in our society and government to have a better understanding of the military if we don't have some kind of universal military service requirement. In plain English, a draft.

I regularly read and hear military folks lamenting how detached the nation is from the Iraq war, how none of the Congress or Executive branch have any real comprehension of the military. But the military seems to be resolutely against doing away with a relatively small, volunteer military force. This seems to be a contradiction. You just can't have it both ways, it seems to me.

I'm not arguing for the draft in this post, I'm just saying that I think this kind of separation from the larger society and population carries along with it such things as a Congress having to rely on a lobbyist or staffer to generate any opinion on military matters.