There’s a famous Jack Nicholson performance in the movie A Few Good Men where Colonel Jessep explains the mentality of a military officer charged with protecting the United States of America. Here’s the exchange as a refresher.

JESSEP: You want answers?

KAFFEE: I think I’m entitled to them.

JESSEP: You want answers?!

KAFFEE: I want the truth.

JESSEP: You can’t handle the truth!

JESSEP: (continuing) Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You want me there. (boasting) We use words like honor, code,
loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ’em as a punchline. (beat) I have neither the time nor the
inclination to explain myself to a man who
rises and sleeps under the blanket of the
very freedom I provide, then questions the
manner in which I provide it. I’d prefer you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to.

KAFFEE: (quietly) Did you order the code red?

JESSEP: (beat) I did the job you sent me to do.

KAFFEE: Did you order the code red?

JESSEP: (pause) You’re goddamn right I did.

I was born in 1969. I reached the age of thirty without there being even a chance of my being drafted. By the time I was six we were completely out Vietnam. By the time I was eight, there was no more conscription. While we were reminded that the Soviets could nuke us at any time, we faced no other existential threat. I grew up in a time when the country was learning the lessons of Vietnam and Watergate. I was not born, as my father was, in the midst of the Depression, and I did not spend my childhood, as my father did, charting on maps the progress of the allied armies. I never saw a civilized nation exterminate people in ovens or like, Stalin, starve millions of Ukranians to death. I was never, as my father was, drafted into the army and deployed to Europe. I had plenty of reason to respect their sacrifice and their accomplishments, but little cause to emulate the virtues and character traits that allowed them to stand up successfully to a totalitarian threat.

It was easy for me to take things for granted. It was easy for me to think that we no longer needed men on the walls to defend our freedoms. In fact, with a certainty, I knew that threats had been hyped and manufactured to justify putting people on those walls.

I am convinced that the all-volunteer army has been a mistake. I do not for a moment doubt that we have a more effective fighting force because the fighting force is self-selected. But the effectiveness of our fighting force is not the only, or most important factor. We have allowed our military to become culturally isolated from the mass culture. This is a grave danger and should never happen.

Removing the sense of shared investment and shared sacrifice in the defense of our nation has led to the corruption of both our civilian and our military lives. The goverment correctly believes that they can employ our military in massive operations without the vast consent and shared sacrifice of the nation. This leads to recklessness. At the same time, the civilian population has lost all empathy for and understanding of the need for military discipline, the chain of command, and military ethics in general.

We’ve lost the ability to communicate with each other.

Even worse, we no longer have the clout of the people, whose prior consent and sacrifice was needed, to restrain the government from using the military in irresponsible ways. It’s too easy to consent to the use of force in a far off land, when no one need do more than send their check to the IRS to do their patriotic duty.

The Bush administration has figured out that they can deploy our forces in any way they choose and maintain support for their mission so long as the bill is charged to the as yet unborn, who have no ability to protest.

We need mandatory service in this country. The service need not be military, as many, if not most, are not cut out for military service. But we will not rein in our government, nor teach them the risks of hubris, until we make sure that all military ventures are shared by the bulk of the American people. We will never shirk our duty when we truly face an existential threat. We know this. If you want peace…if you want the people to have a veto on reckless preemptive strikes in far-off lands…then you should support mandatory service.

In the meantime, our generation…my generation, should think three times before they take the sacrifice of our military for granted or heap abuse on the military and military families beacuse of the unwise, even immoral, orders they are given and asked to carry out. Martial virtues and values exist for a good reason. And all wars see disgraceful immorality. When we assure ourselves that we will not enter into war without absolute necessity, then we will not bicker among ourselves about culpability. We will know that the culpability lies with all of us.

Mandatory service is a progressive idea that will promote peace.