This article is misleading. A new Gallup poll finds that out of government institutions, Americans, or 69 percent of them, have the most trust for the military. Somehow the story is about how this survey means that citizens are potentially more trustful of military recruiters, based on the words of some Pentagon PR person and the reporter’s interpretation of the survey (which I haven’t read, by the way). I think the reporter, or maybe his editor, wanted to make news out of something that really isn’t. It’s doubtful that Americans trust military recruiters at the same level as the military at large, given their sagging enlistment numbers, frequent abuses of power, and an unpopular war.
July 18, 2007 at 6:08 am |
This raises a question, how can you trust the military, but not military recruiters? The recruiters are regular members of the service who are temporarily assigned to recruiting duty. So if you distrust the recruiters then you would have to distrust the military as a whole. And of course the flip side is true. If you do trust the military, you can trust the recruiters. This question aside, if the recruiters fail to enlist the men and women the military needs to survive, the only answer is the return of the DRAFT. Next question, do we want an all recruited force where each person makes the decision for himself or herself? Or would we be better off with the government deciding for us?