Confront your shame and honor the heroes
The following articulates something I've sensed out of a lot of people over the past few years, and even 20 years ago when I enlisted.
There is something deeper, though. I think we resent the all-volunteer military. It is a constant rebuke to those of us who might have done more for our country, but decided not to. When the heroes are draftees, we can honor them for having risen above the misfortune of their low draft number. They lost the lottery, and still they thrived. The draftee is not different from us in the choices he made, he simply made the most of his bad fortune. We imagine we might have risen to the same challenge.
When our soldiers are volunteers, however, many of us are both mystified by the decision that they made and embarrassed that we did not make the same decision. We are ashamed by their heroism, because it reminds us of our own self-indulgence. We then compound the insult by not recognizing our own weakness and honoring the heroes in spite of it.
People do what they do for their own reasons, of course. It may not be weakness or self-indulgence. But then it just might be those things too.
Update: I confused Tigerhawk with Iowahawk. All fixed now.
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