Soldiers are warriors, not infants.  Let’s talk about their needs, but let’s not imply they have no idea how they got there.

It gets complicated, obviously.  Because while  Sullivan’s clearly right to point out that we do have an all-volunteer army, we also do have a military that pulls disproportionately from poor and minority communities.  Yes: they volunteered.  Yes: I’m sure they’re proud to be there.  I wouldn’t know though, I’d have to do a survey.

But, and this is a huge but that we can never really know the answer to, if they had been middle-class kids, would they have agreed to go to Iraq?  I don’t know, but the statistics clearly indicate that the folks over in Iraq come from somewhere, and it’s usually not the tony suburbs.

So, is a semi-coercion of political and economic opportunity the same as a draft?  Of course not.  But I’m not sure it’s volunteer either.