It Doesn’t Matter What We Think

Our Opportunity Has Passed Us By

To ALL of my friends (rejoicing or prepping for the end times), the temptation to misinterpret and overreach is very real. We ALL need to ease up on the political rhetoric. Because…

In many cases… It Does Not Matter What We Think

For example, With a little bit of time and thought, most of us (at least those not consuming edibles while reading this) would admit that the effectiveness of the Armed Forces of the United States is centered around the less than 1% of Americans who are between the ages of 18 and 24 and who volunteer to serve in our Armed Forces.

Sure, there are plenty of old codgers (like me) flopping around in military physical fitness gear every morning, but they don’t fight wars. Old guys & gals plan, pontificate, propose, and parlay… but don’t do the fighting, killing, maiming, and suffering that war calls for.

Secretary Hegseth correctly identifies lethality as the measure of our combat power, and…. our combat power is generated by the 18 to 24-year-olds who bear the brunt of the sacrifice required to maintain America's freedom. Freedom isn't free, remember?

Almost every bit of the burden of killing and dying falls on that small group of Americans.

If you think NFL Quarterbacks or NBA Players age out quickly… you should check into how fast a rifleman ages out of peak performance.

If you think gender is a discriminator… you should check the stamina of a 20-year-old female compared to a 35-year-old male. There is no comparison; Father Time is the great equalizer.

When I hear politicians spouting their ideology towards the military… when I hear grizzled veterans remembering the glory days when men were men (and sheep ran scared)… I cringe because It Does Not Matter What We Think!

It does not matter what we think because we have an ALL-VOLUNTEER Force made up (especially in combat formations) of 18 to 24-year-olds. If we cannot convince them to volunteer, we have no combat power… we have no Armed Forces.

Because of that, whether WE (folks too old to carry a rifle) think that the military is too left, right, woke, white, sexist, weak, politically correct, ‘bro-cultured, good-ol-boyish, ignorant, or elitist does not matter.

Our opinions (as team owners and coaches) are important, but they are immaterial… mainly because players play the game, and most of us are too old to perform in the meat grinder, which is combat.

We must convince our youth that service to the nation is essential and create a military culture consistent with THEIR beliefs, or they won’t come.

I will admit that I do not understand how to appeal to today’s youth. They seem more accepting of things, situations, and relationships than I am. They are very different from my generation, and to be honest, I have often unfairly questioned their strength of will.

But to be fair, we are the most powerful fighting force in the world's history, and my Vietnam-era Navy Vet Father believes we’re soft. My WWII-era Army Vet Grandfather (who served in the Pacific) thought we were pansies. So, maybe my criticism of our current generation of warriors is a generational norm.

Only as I’ve gotten older have I given much thought to the secondary and tertiary repercussions of having an all-volunteer-force.

In March 1969, President Nixon established the Gates Commission to study the feasibility of transitioning our Armed Forces to an All-Volunteer Force (AVF). The Gates Commission's recommendations led to the AVF becoming our reality in 1973. However, as early as 1976, critics began sounding alarm bells about the increasing risk of perpetuating the AVF. That same year, the Military Review published an essay by William King calling for a hard look at alternatives to our all-volunteer force. "The All-Volunteer Armed Forces"

More than forty years later, the main risks that Mr. King identified still exist.

The first is that our defense depends on the American taxpayer's willingness to pay increasingly higher taxes year over year to fund the AVF. The second (and perhaps more existential) is that our national defense depends on our ability to convince hundreds of thousands of 18 to 24-year-old citizens to volunteer for military service every year and potentially sacrifice their lives for our nation.

Most of us (and especially our politicians) don't realize how tenuous our grasp on our military power is. In an all-volunteer force (much like a business), the hardest lesson to learn is that it doesn't matter what we think—the customer has a "say."

In other words, woke, not-woke, left, right, independent, gay, straight, crooked... it doesn't matter what we think. It matters what the hundreds of thousands of 18 to 24-year-olds think. We dismiss their generation's beliefs at our peril. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what we think of the next generation. We have to convince them to join and make the military a place where they feel accepted.

As our generations die out (bleak but certain), they will take the wheel. Are we (old folks) going to be thoughtful enough to set aside our own biases and ensure the future of the US, or are we going to demand in bitterness and bile that nothing change… dooming our all-volunteer armed forces and hastening the end of empire? Are we going to fiddle while Rome burns?

None of us is Gandalph. None of us can wave our staff and “magic up” some Corsairs or transport some of Hephaestus’ automatons to storm our enemy’s door. So, let’s just put the ideological rhetoric aside. Playing politics with military readiness is dangerous.

If we decide to cut the perks and privileges (or numbers) of colonels and generals, that’s perfectly fine. We probably have too many, and if you haven't read former Defense Secretary Gates' discussion about the perks for the princes that run our military, prepare to be disgusted and outraged. -there’s a job for DOGE if you can find no other- However, we cannot continue to spew political rhetoric that places doubt in the minds of America's youth about volunteering to serve our nation. It is not just stupid; it is dangerous.

So, the next time you hear a grey hair (or no-hair, like me) telling you what military culture should be - the next time some old-timer tells you that polishing boots and ironing uniforms transforms men into warriors - or even the next time some “mil-bro” tells you that Ray Bans and beards win wars (when a hand-full of nerds with drones can feed an armored battalion into the meatgrinder), please, tell them, "It doesn't matter what we think."

The opportunity for our generation to foundationally and formatively influence our prospective military recruits' cultural and moral beliefs has passed. They’re already formed, and the lessons we passed along during their childhood are “baked in” by now.

This nation's next generation of defenders will have to make do with whatever lessons they learned from us as we turned away from them to focus on our culture wars and grasp for economic status.

All we can do now is mentor, advise, and (hopefully) influence. -Although I can’t imagine why they would take any advice from us- And if we disagree with what they have become, we can only blame ourselves for our infighting and strife.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we think the military should be; our time has passed. It matters what kind of military our 18 to 24-year-olds are willing to volunteer to join, fight, and perhaps die for.