Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
The Bar is higher now than it was in 1965-75. That's a matter of public record.RTK can speak for himself but I will point out that's not what you initially said.Since RTK did not say anything along that line and I did, I'll point out that I did not say today's men were better than in your day. What I actually said was ""these kids today, officer and enlisted, are across the board, smarter, better educated, better trained and far more tactically and technically competent than the vast majority of folks who served in Viet Nam."" Note that does not address their manhood or say they're better men, just that they're those things I said. I stand by that remark.
And this is historically pretty normal. I could go off on one of my rants about how the volunteer force has actually been the historical NORM for the Army, but I'll spare folks....

Education and technology always drive an overall improvement in troop quality. The GI in Vietnam was better educated than his World War II counterpart, who in turn was better educated than his World War I forefathers. And the same statement applies to the population at large. Better than what came before? Possibly in some ways, but not in others. Where the spikes take place is often in the quality of volunteers (something we've seen in the Civil War, Spanish-American, Mexican, and so on). The draft was never really equitable, and tended to be less so as soon as any shooting started or there was a planned drawdown.

This sort of vitriol is also as old as the United States...and in some ways predates it. Traditionally pacifist/isolationist New England states were against just about every major conflict we had prior to 1900 (except when they got all riled up about slavery). Troops on the Frontier were routinely accused of being tools of just about everyone in close proximity. And similar attacks came against troops in the Philippines.

Reassuring? Not really. But it does show that there are some constants in our social history, I suppose....