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A decade after the 9/11 attacks, Americans live in an era of endless war
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Washington Post
Posted: September 13th, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-deca...
This is the American era of endless war. Americas embrace of endless war [has unfolded] in the 10 years since Sept. 11, 2001. In previous decades, the military and the American public viewed war as an aberration and peace as the norm. Most soldiers and Marines in todays military have seen their entire careers consumed by combat. During last years 9/11 anniversary, Lt. Col. Christopher M. Coglianese accompanied his second-grade daughter on her schools annual Freedom Walk outside Fort Hood, Tex. Basically the whole student body walks around the grounds of the school wearing patriotic garb and carrying signs about freedom, Coglianese recalled in an e-mail from Iraq, where he is on his third tour. To be honest there was a certain surrealism about it, Coglianese wrote. For this very small slice of American children this way of life is completely normal. The long stretch of war has also isolated the U.S. military from society. Top military officials fret that the troops are developing a troubling sense that they are better than the society they serve. Todays Army, including its leadership, lives in a bubble separate from society, wrote retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, in an essay for the Web site of Foreign Policy magazine. This splendid military isolation set in the midst of a largely adoring nation risks fostering a closed culture of superiority and aloofness. This must change if the Army is to remain in, of, and with the ever-diverse peoples of the United States.
Note: For lots more on all facets of America's endless war, click here.
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