Doug Henwood
Christian is probably going to do a piece for The Nation sometime next year on the culture of the military. Quick summary of his point: today's US army is nothing like that of the 1970s. Today's soldiers are mostly loyal, disciplined professionals who want to be there.
<snip> Doug ___________________________________ In late 1976 a friend and I decided to join the service in order to take advantage of the generous old G.I. bill, which was expiring at the end of the year. We nearly joined the Air Force, but they wouldn't take us because we had smoked dope more than four times (no joke - and, yes, we told them when we were asked) Anyway, we eventually ended up in an Army recruiting office and they were asking no questions. At the last minute I backed out, but my friend signed up and spent three years as a corpsman stationed at Ft. Polk, Louisana. He passed most of his time washing ambulances and writing songs with another G.I., and their experience was typical of the unit. However, my buddy told me that during his last six months on active service he noticed a real change in the kind of recruit who was entering the Army: very gung ho, very obedient, very disciplined - nobody had to tell these kids when to to get their hair cut. It seems a lot of things changed around 1979 . . .
-------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 4450 bytes Desc: not available URL: <../attachments/20051219/90e9eea0/attachment.bin>