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18.1.6: Social Class and the Military

During World War II, three-fourths of U.S. men in their late teens and twenties served in the military. These men became soldiers either voluntarily or by being drafted—called by the government to military service. In this time of need, every able-bodied adult male was expected to serve. Only those who had some physical or mental impairment were released from this obligation.

Today, there is no draft. That policy ended in 1973 and was replaced by the concept of an all-volunteer military. But, given the differences in life chances linked to social class, not every member of our society is equally likely to volunteer. One recent study concluded that the military has few young people who are rich and also few who are very poor. Rather, the military has become a job mostly for working-class men and women who hope to earn some money to go to college or who look for a way to get out of the small town where they grew up. Regionally, the largest share (46 percent) of young enlistees comes from the South, where local culture is more supportive of the military and where most military bases are located. The smallest share (12 percent) comes from the Northeast (U.S. Department of Defense, 2020). As one study concluded, “America’s military seems to resemble the makeup of a two-year commuter or trade school outside Birmingham or Biloxi far more than that of a ghetto or barrio or four-year university in Boston” (Halbfinger & Holmes, 2003:1).

In times of economic uncertainty, an increasing number of young men and women consider signing up for military service. For some, the attraction lies in learning job skills, gaining discipline and confidence, and making money to use later on for college. For others, there are few alternative jobs to be found. In any case, it appears that our nation now has a “working-class army” (Glater, 2005). The Social Problems in Focus box raises the question of whether our nation has created a warrior caste.

Social Problems in Focus

Has Our All-Volunteer Army Turned into a Warrior Caste?

After completing three tours of duty in Iraq, Marine Sergeant Alex Lemons returned to his wife and home in Utah. He was glad to put combat behind him. But his return to the United States did not feel like a homecoming. “I felt as alien here as I felt in Iraq,” Lemons explained, sitting in his living room. In Iraq, Lemons felt the ever-present dangers of combat. Back home, however, he saw no evidence anywhere that this country was engaged in a war. Most people were scarcely aware that the United States had been at war in Iraq. Lemons felt that this amounted to a major problem: The vast majority of our people in society no longer are directly involved in the military.

It was not always that way. During World War II, about 9 percent of the U.S. population saw active duty in the military. Almost everyone who stayed at home was involved in the war effort by working in defense plants, participating in the rationing of vital materials, and buying bonds to finance the war effort. Today, by contrast, less than one-half of 1 percent of our nation’s population is in the military, and most families have no living member who has ever worn a military uniform. Between 2000 and 2020, people over the age of eighteen who have served in the military represent just 1 percent of the population. That leaves 99 percent of us with no direct involvement in military service. This is the same level of inequality that mobilized the Occupy movement—in this case, however, it is the “1 percent” that is doing all the work.

There are many reasons that military service now involves a small share of the U.S. population. The most important factor is that, in 1973, as the Vietnam War was winding down, the draft was ended and replaced by the policy of the all-volunteer military. A second factor is gender, because 84 percent of today’s military personnel are males. Third, military personnel are overwhelmingly from certain parts of the country, with the South heavily represented. In fact, half of all active-duty military personnel are stationed in just five states: Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and California. Beyond this list, additional factors also come into play: Most young people would be ineligible to enlist even if they wanted to. Some have criminal records, and many are overweight. The U.S. Department of Defense (2020) estimates that only about one in eight people between seventeen and twenty-four years of age is not attending college and also is able to meet all the requirements for joining the military.

When we put all the factors together, today’s military personnel are men and women from rural areas and small towns in more culturally traditional regions of the country where people are likely to hold to military values such as honor, discipline, and patriotism. Although almost none of these people grew up in poverty, the large majority are from working-class families. Typically, they see in military service an opportunity to serve their country as well as to gain economic security and work experience.

The fact that military service falls on an ever-thinner slice of U.S. society is also evident in the country’s leadership. At the end of the Vietnam War, almost 80 percent of members of Congress were veterans; when the new Congress convened in 2020, just 18 percent of lawmakers had any military experience (Manning, 2020). As for the people who work in the mass media, including newspapers and the television and film industries, virtually no one has served in the military.

With these facts in mind, it’s easy to understand the frustration of one military wife, who lives in Washington State and whose husband served in Afghanistan. Several years ago, she recounted that the Taliban blew up “a bus last week and killed seventeen people, and I didn’t know anything about it because it wasn’t on the news. It makes me think nobody cares. They’re putting on things like Kardashians getting divorced—it’s on the news constantly—but we have soldiers over there dying, and you just don’t hear about it” (Thompson, 2011; Manning, 2020). 

Do you think the responsibility of military service should be shouldered by just 1 percent of the adult population? Explain.

Would you support restoring the draft as a means of spreading this responsibility throughout the class structure? Why or why not?

1. How well do you think this nation treats our military veterans? Explain.