The burden of war we once shared

When all the GOP presidential candidates who had the support of anybody other than family members got together for last night's debate, they had one thing in common that once would have been unthinkable. Not one served in the military.

It's also true of all of the legitimate Democratic contenders.

And it's hard not to wonder, on Veterans Day, exactly what happened to us.

I'm 44, and like the vast majority of men in my generation, I never served. I came, over time spent covering our soldiers in 2004, to regret that. I wish I had. And I wish we had a requirement that had forced me, and all those folks up on stage applying for the title of commander-in-chief, to serve our nation in some capacity.

I grew up in the 1970s and '80s, so when my assignment took me to Iraq, I expected to be greeted by versions of Hawkeye Pierce, Charles Emerson Winchester and Klinger.

"MASH" provided most of what I knew about war and the military, but none of those people I expected were there because we have no draft. The 109th Field Artillery of the Pennsylvania National Guard had no anti-war comedians, no wealthy snobs and no cross dressers angling for discharges.

It was mostly guys who could use the money, the college tuition and the eventual pensions service offered. They didn't spring from political dynasties, or have perfect SATs. Many of them had an attraction to the tasks, to the uniforms, to the weapons and to the adventure. They liked palling around one weekend a month and two weeks a year in the field, and if they weren't expecting a war and active duty when they signed up for the Guard, most were OK with living up to the terms of the deal they inked.

We used to be a country where our defense was, mostly, a shared burden. Historically, we didn't keep big standing armies, but when trouble came, nearly everyone had to help out. I'm not making a "greatest generation" argument here: of the 16 million American men who served in World War II, 10 million were drafted. So these men and women who currently volunteer, who have kept us draft-free since 1973, are as great as any generation of Americans.

But from World War II through Korea and Vietnam, until 1973, we did have compulsory military service for most men in this country, although some weaseled out thanks to inappropriate exemptions that very much favored the wealthy and educated, or by fleeing the country. Many who could have didn't weasel out on that basis, though. And from this shared, widespread experience we got a generation of political leaders who had, mostly, served in some capacity.

That gave them a sense of the cost of war, and the realities of the military. But just as important, when our nation was evolving faster than any society ever has, it mixed blacks and whites and Italians and Jews and southerners and Brooklynites and Californians, and the rich and the poor, perhaps not perfectly, but more than just about any other institution.

We got to know each other.

So what I support is a year of national compulsory service for all, with no exemptions. It doesn't have to all be military. You can feed the poor, or teach, or plant trees, if war games aren't your thing. But I'd make it so you have to live in barracks, and eat together.

Because it's troublesome that not one serious contender for the presidency in 2016 has been in a war, or even in the military. And it's even more troublesome that they, and most of us along with them, haven't been thrown into these true melting pot settings that do so much to help us understand each other, and make us one nation of a type worth dying for.