"Public Servants" Vs. Those Who Serve

                Incredibly, less than one-half of one percent of the U.S. population is in the armed forces today. And, of those that are, nearly 80% come from a family in which a parent or sibling is also in the military, many from multi-generational military families.

                Moreover, virtually half of all active-duty service members in the United States are concentrated in just five states- Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and California. In essence, the country harbors a separate warrior class that is beginning to see itself as distinct from the land and people it is protecting. Sadly, more and more civilians are looking at the military as distinctly apart from their daily lives and notice, as well.

                “As a nation, we’ve learned to separate the warrior from the war,” wrote Gen. Martin Dempsey, current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a 2013 commentary. “But we still have much to learn about how to connect the warrior to the citizen.” Indeed, there is growing concern in the military that reintegrating service members into communities whose knowledge of war is limited to what they see on television may be as difficult as fighting a war.

                Tragically, many “sophisticated” civilians, especially those in big cities on the coasts, regard the military itself as- at best- a necessary evil. These liberal elitists aren’t particularly smitten with the idea of soldiers hunkering down amongst them, at least not in the immediate vicinity. “Camouflage…?! How gauche!”

                Southern states typically provide the vast majority of recruits.  The age group that necessarily fills the military rolls on a yearly basis is 18-to 24-year-olds. The highest-rate contributors of this group, in 2013, were Georgia, Virginia, Idaho, Florida and South Carolina.

                The District of Columbia was last. That’s correct, the nation’s capital now sends, per capita, the fewest new recruits annually to its own country’s armed forces.

                Ironically enough, six of the wealthiest ten counties in America surround Washington, D.C.

These wealthy “public servants” are too busy taking staggering amounts of taxpayer’s money and spending it on themselves and their favorite special-interest groups and campaign-contributors to pay much attention to the military, though they have repeatedly voted to slash the military’s budget in recent years. In fairness, they ignore the taxpayers, too.

In summation, the largest wealthy group of Americans, our “public servants,” take oodles and oodles of money from those in the private sector (while berating them for being greedy) and spend it to buttress their own power, while ignoring- or worse- those true public servants that risk their lives for us on a continual basis.

                In contrast, General Washington refused a salary for the duration of the Revolutionary War, while leading his troops into battle, his own life in jeopardy on a daily basis.

Rest assured, Washington weeps for his city. And his nation.

It is time that we retire the terms “public servant” and “civil servant,” as they relate to politicians. They have been made offensive and obscene by those hungry only for power, and obscure the true nature of “service” that our volunteer military exemplifies.

Americans: I do hereby propose we change the name of our nation’s capitol to Clinton, D.C., so as to more accurately jibe with the priorities and mores of its inhabitants and relieve the Father of Our Country of any guilt-by-association that he, uniquely, does not deserve.