Recommending Military Service

It was a tough call. A young man sitting next to me in an airport lounge wanted to know if I’d recommend joining the Marine Corps. I found myself struggling for an honest answer. A decade ago, I would have sent him running for the nearest recruiter. But that day I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

He was a solid young guy, politely apologizing for intruding, staring at my Marine lapel pin, and asking for my take on his immediate future. What did I think from my veteran’s perspective? He’d graduated from high school and was looking for something more rewarding than his fast-food job. He explained his aversion to starting college and incurring an immediate student loan burden. Smart kid, grounded in reality, I thought. Would the military be a smart move?

“Maybe give it some time…” I equivocated, thinking of the gutless military leaders that had turned our once fearsome American military into a force of softened and distracted subjects for useless social experiments. “Right now is not a good time,” I said, hating that answer for the message it sent. “I’m hoping things in the military will get better soon.” I didn’t really believe it then. Now I do.

And so do generations of other veterans who, for the first time in more than a decade, are coming out of politically imposed isolation to recommend a stint in uniform as a proud, patriotic, and productive way to start life as an American citizen. It’s been a long time coming but many of us are now gladly pointing our sons, daughters, and their young friends toward a leavening and invaluable experience to be gained in four or more years of military service.

That’s all down to President Trump and his new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who are wasting little time in correcting the badly skewed course our military has been following. It’s a top-down, long-overdue housecleaning that’s got brass-bound scolds running for the bunkers. All the time-wasting warm and fuzzy concepts of DEI are being replaced with a renewed and exclusive focus on what our military forces are there to do: kill people and tear stuff up as required in the course of defending our nation and its national interests.

Us grizzled old vets of prior wars and younger, more vocal veterans of America’s forever wars in the Middle East aren’t the only ones celebrating the change. Just take a look at recent recruiting numbers. They are solid in all services and on an upward curve. That means younger Americans contemplating their future also see the difference. It also means that the toady generals and admirals who kept telling us low recruiting numbers are the result of an unpatriotic, complacent generation (X-Y-Z, dealer’s choice) who simply refuse to step up and share the burden of national defense are just wrong.

What sabotaged recruiting numbers over the past decade was something entirely predictable. Namely, entire generations of military veterans who simply refused to recommend military service to young relatives or friends. It wasn’t spite or sour grapes. It was simply looking out for the younger generation. That’s what Dads, Granddads, Uncles, and family friends have done forever. None of us wanted to send our young charges off into four years or more of service and sacrifice, which might well involve combat, in some lame outfit that cared more about diversity and inclusion than about how to beat the snot out of any and all enemies as, when, and where required.

Turns out all the bait and (too often) switch incentives were not the big drivers social scientists in uniform believed them to be. Certainly, a lot of young men and women who enlist do so for a steady paycheck, education benefits, and VA health care (such as it is) but the majority are after something more intangible. They wanted to serve and were just waiting for someone they trusted to tell them it was the right thing to do.

Now here we are at the dawning of a new aspect of American military service following years of DEI distractions. Here we are turning back to our roots and our real military purpose at last. Here we are brooming out the nonsense and flashing laser rangefinders on stuff that kills the enemy efficiently and effectively. Hopefully, the days of sending out neglected rust-bucket warships that can’t make it more than a day or two from shore are done. Hopefully, we’ll spend valuable time and effort where it’s needed rather than demanding our people sit in classrooms bored to tears and listening to some clown whine about white privilege or black, yellow, or brown disparities.

Do just that and we’ll be on the right track. We’ll discover, as rejuvenated recruiting numbers are showing, that we have a bunch of motivated young people who want to serve their country. We’ll hopefully discover that the nation has a stable full of young men and women of distinct quality and courage. Many of us silent, angry veterans always knew and believed that anyway. Can’t wait for this year’s Veterans Day ceremonies around the nation.

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