Why Elites are AWOL

Patrick Poole Reviews a new book by Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer, AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from the Military – and How It Hurts Our Country (HarperCollins). In this essay he takes a look at the growing problem of an isolated and smug cultural elite which is disconnected from the military, and one should also point out from much of the rest of the country, and how that could have serious implications for our democracy and our future ability to defend ourselves.

The cultural dominance of the anti-war narrative after Vietnam is acute in academia, which many anti-war protestors never left, but is perpetuated as well in our entertainment and media industries. Hollywood’s version of the Vietnam War can be seen in a long string of anti-military films, such as Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and Full Metal Jacket, while Mel Gibson’s pro-military We Were Soldiers is the rare exception. The anti-war narrative still reigns in Hollywood, as seen in the recent film, Jarhead, and emboldens many A-list entertainers, who feel free to openly criticize the military and the current administration’s war policy, despite the fact that virtually no A-list celebrity criticizing our war effort against terrorism or complaining of abuses by members of our armed service has ever served in the military they are quick to deride.

The media have also embraced the anti-war narrative. Ignorance of military affairs, if not open contempt for them, severely limits the abilities of the media to accurately portray the many dimensions of military actions. Instead, media coverage of conflicts is extremely myopic, focused almost exclusively on corruption or casualties. One only needs to pick up any major newspaper or watch network news to see that these types of corruption or casualty stories overwhelmingly dominate current media coverage. And while most mainstream media reporters in Iraq huddle in the relative safety of Baghdad’s Green Zone, only a few intrepid reporters – mostly independents and freelancers, such as Michael Yon – are actually engaged in first-hand coverage of current combat operations.