Suburban Army

Recently I noticed that several people I know have kids who joined a military service. Some people are what you might call "blue collar" workers and one might expect this kind of behavior there. But several people are "white collar professionals" and now that we have an all volunteer army, one might expect their kids to avoid the military and pursue a college education and a career. This is not always the case.

One of things I have heard (filtered by the media) from soldiers who have served in Iraq is that when they are over there, they can't wait to get home, but once they get home all they want is to go back to Iraq. I think I understand. Iraqis are crazy. Their way of thinking is completely alien to an American. Different things matter, things we take for granted in the U.S. are unheard of over there. Trying to deal with crazy people trying to kill you on a daily basis would be stressful, to say the least. Sure you would want to get out of there.

On the other hand, life in an American suburb is just a little too insular. Everything is safe, everyone is protected. It's kind of like Chris Tucker in "The Fifth Element" when they find a bomb on board the luxury liner: he is a surprised that there is a bomb on board and the bomb detector has not detected it, yet.


What's this thing with all these numbah's?
You come out of a very stressful environment and come back to the U.S. and all the concerns people have are going to seem so petty and inconsequential, no wonder they want to go back. Iraqis may be crazy, but at least it is real crazy, and not the silly crazy we have here.

There is something about being young that makes people (men especially) want a challenge, be it strength, skill, wit, or simply endurance, something where they can excel, where they can beat somebody at something. Failing that, if they can at least be useful they might be content. I suspect this is one reason people join the military, they want a challenge, they want adventure, they want to escape from our too safe American dream.

Update March 2016 replaced missing video.