Since far fewer people are recruited to serve in a voluntary military, the connection between America and its military is increasingly tenuous and less personal.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Recruitment and retention are critical to sustain our Armed Forces with the best men and women willing to stand in the gap and make huge sacrifices to ensure our freedom.
So the whole of war, when you look at it is probably run by professional soldiers, and the rest of them are just recruits, or people who are just forced to join the army.
Some 70% to 80% of all who join the military will return to the civilian workforce. They'll return to communities, and one of the things I've worried about is the increasing disconnect between the American people and our men and women in uniform. We come from fewer and fewer places. We're less than 1% of the population.
The military is not a social experiment. The purpose of the military is kill people and break things. It's not to transform the culture by trying out some ideas that some people think would make us a different country and more diverse. The purpose is to protect America.
People think of the military as being about guns and fighting wars, but it's really about service to country and community.
Meanwhile, our young men and women whose economic circumstances make military service a viable career choice are dying bravely in a war with no end in sight.
I think most Americans believe that although it's better not to use military force if you can avoid it, that the world simply doesn't provide us the luxury of giving away military force as an important tool of foreign policy.
To our men and women in the armed services, the huge and deep core of your loyalty has earned the nation's accolade.
We have a sufficient political class, and the military doesn't have to get involved in high national office. The days of doing that, post-Civil War and post-World War II, are gone.
More than 48 million men and women have served America well and faithfully in military uniform.