Splicetoday

Politics & Media
Dec 16, 2008, 05:54AM

Two Americas

What our all-volunteer army is telling us about our country,

Somehow it relates to blogs:

And we can’t simply treat the uneven pattern of military service as an insignificant reflection of the cultural differences that characterize different regions of this diverse country. Military institutions across nations and throughout time have always been important creators of culture. They strive to develop unbreakable bonds of solidarity among their members based on shared values, experiences and outlooks. In this country, the military’s leadership role in racial integration has been understood in just this way.

The issue now is not racial integration but cultural separation. If young people from different regions and social backgrounds either enter or steer clear of the armed forces, military service will become, over time, an experience that doesn’t ease but exacerbates pre-existing cultural differences.

Is the all-volunteer military already having this effect?

I spotted the link between military service and regional partisan divisions when I was researching not military history but Internet political communication.

After spending time on political Web sites of the right and left, I noticed that posts on right-leaning sites often employed military lingo — habits of developing monikers and jingles and of using the vocabulary of military tactics and strategy.

Discussion

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