The Hill News

That Americans are dangerously disconnected from their military representatives is an interesting â€" quite accurate â€" comment, all the more interesting when the comment comes from the secretary of Defense.

That is the message Robert M. Gates delivered to a Duke University audience a few nights ago. Secretary Gates is the head of the military cadre he complained was cut off from the politics and culture of the country it serves, according to a press account of the speech. The few (less than 1 percent of the population) who have fought our wars are distant from their countrymen since we abolished the draft in 1970. Military service is “something for other people to do.” Our all-volunteer military force has served the country in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade, longer than any sustained combat in our country’s history.

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