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....
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