Carol Daniel
My father served two tours in Vietnam in the 60’s, and now my brother-in-law Glenn is preparing for his second tour of duty in the Middle East this December. This week, as city after city in our country paused to remember and reflect on the horror that was 9/11, all I could really think about was my family.
My tie to the Department of Defense will never be broken. I will always be a military brat, the daughter of a drill sergeant who was a career soldier. The sound of soldiers jogging or marching while chanting, “I don’t know what you’ve been told….” will always ring as real in my head. It was in this environment that I learned that daddies go away for days or months at a time, mommies hold down the fort and daddies usually come back.
I was too young during Vietnam to know anything about body bags and government lies. And there was no 24-hour television news network to report everything about everything and report it over and over and over again. So I grew up insulated and somewhat isolated from the truth of it all. And perhaps my mother did as well. But that’s not the case for husbands, wives, sons and daughters today.
Politicians tell us that the war on terror is successful because there haven’t been any more attacks. “We are safer,” they say. While I’m not preoccupied with it, I don’t feel safer and I know that our men and women in uniform are not. And it is with that understanding that we send more loved ones over there to give us some sense or illusion of safety back here. It is a noble and necessary thing to do. And when I say “necessary,” I do not mean that I agree with the policies of the current war on terrorism. What I mean is the everyday man and woman in the military go where they are told to go. That much is necessary.
But more has changed than just our inability to get quickly in and out of an airport. There is such a shift in our perception that in fewer black folks are signing up for military service. The military is no longer seen as a stable career path where one can earn a steady income, raise a family and perhaps see the world. USA Today reported last November that African-American enlistment has declined about 40 percent since 2000. Enlistment appeals based on patriotism don’t appear to be working.
There won’t be many more black families like mine if the current trend keeps up. This past June, the last of my three older brothers retired after serving for 20 years. Between them there was over 60 years of combined service to the Army, Air Force and Marines. My husband served as well, and my brother-in-law has three years left to “make his 20.”
Perhaps the change points to our ability to find stable jobs in other career fields as well as a strong sense that while we may not be able to leave what we started, it was wrong to start it. It certainly doesn’t help military recruiters to hear U.S. Senator Kit Bond say that the United States is in for what he calls a “decades-long war against radical Islam.” You can bet those words will never appear on a military recruitment brochure.