The people we send to war

During the Vietnam War, a draft was on in the United States that supposedly sent all walks of life to fight.

But rich and powerful folks used their influence to exempt their boys from going to war. Our "side" was primarily made up of poor and lower-class men who had no choice but fleeing to Canada. So mostly they went. And died by the thousands.

Today our military is "all-volunteer." That's an academic term in parts of this country. Like the inner cities, where minority youth have struggled to survive at home and on the streets while going to "schools" that are that in name only. And little towns all across this land, where young men and women see the military as the way out of want. I could take you to places today in Appalachia where the poverty would stop you dead. 

Yes, I know there are military officers in it for the power and the glory. But I also know that it's possible--or likely--that the young corporal from East St. Louis or buck sergeant from Harlan, Ky., is in the service so his child can get health-care or her future might include money for college.

50 years ago, young people in my native neck of the woods fled to the industrial North to earn a living wage. That ol' hillbilly highway. Today that highway so often leads to a war zone, by way of places like Fort Hood, Texas.