About military recruitment: 1) For decades, the recruitment advertising has emphasized travel and portable job skills. Sure, they understood deployment was a possibility, but people were not signing up for a 20-year war and multiple deployments to battlefield theaters, especially reservists and the National Guard who got put on active duty. The AVF is pretty forgettable for most Americans. If the wars directly touched a greater swath of American society, there would have been protests a la 1968. Politicians putting people into harm's way based on the WMD lie is hideous.
2) A person's experience in the military is directly influenced by the commander. Get a bad commander and the whole unit devolves. If you doubt it, just look at what happened to ethics, norms and morale of the White House under Trump.
3) A major source of family stress not mentioned in the article is spousal unfailthfulness.
About military recruitment: 1) For decades, the recruitment advertising has emphasized travel and portable job skills. Sure, they understood deployment was a possibility, but people were not signing up for a 20-year war and multiple deployments to battlefield theaters, especially reservists and the National Guard who got put on active duty. The AVF is pretty forgettable for most Americans. If the wars directly touched a greater swath of American society, there would have been protests a la 1968. Politicians putting people into harm's way based on the WMD lie is hideous.
2) A person's experience in the military is directly influenced by the commander. Get a bad commander and the whole unit devolves. If you doubt it, just look at what happened to ethics, norms and morale of the White House under Trump.
3) A major source of family stress not mentioned in the article is spousal unfailthfulness.