An Army in the Streets: Do the Generals Know the Price?
The veterans who lie on Mount Adnah had the nation's support. Don't count on the future to be like the past.
The Olsens rest on Mount Adnah. The inscriptions are spare but their words speak volumes. Father and son, US Army and Coast Guard, First and Second World Wars. In one family two generations served in two great conflicts. Along with millions, volunteers and draftees, they wrote America’s history and the 20th Century’s as well.
The Olsens were citizen soldiers, the flags and plain markers witnessing the honorable discharge of an obligation to defend their country in time of war. But when the lives of the soldiers who today are deployed against Americans finally run their course, what will their tombstones say?
Mount Adnah oversees Annisquam, a 400-year-old village north of Gloucester Massachusetts on Cape Ann. The hilltop is rich in history as well as beauty, but the cemetery isn’t unique. A few miles away in Seaside, Locust Grove and Beechbrook Cemeteries, flags mark even more veterans beneath the Cape’s granite stones.
The inscriptions tell of fathers, sons, brothers and sisters who served and returned or were lost. Fraternal orders and Eagle Scouts as well as families place the flags. The fields of color are themselves a story, pictures of another time when all were called to serve, not just applaud a volunteer few.
But that was then and this is now. American views are changing. For the generals snapping salutes to President Trump and ordering soldiers onto the streets, the public’s reaction ought to be more than a wake-up. When it comes to support for the armed forces, they need to think hard about what their decisions will bring.
A Pew Research Center survey last year shows why.
At first glance, the results might appear reassuring. The survey found some 60 percent of Americans asked said the military has a positive effect on the country. Only 36 percent said the opposite. But the top line isn’t what it seems. A closer look at what Americans think shows a major generational divide.
While 70 percent of those age 50 or over had a positive view of the armed forces, that share drops 10 percent for the over-40 to 50 crowd. Tellingly, more than half of those under-30 saw the military in a negative light. The difference isn’t hard to explain.
Most obviously, positive attitudes among older Americans about the military reflect relatives who served as well as their own experience in uniform. For Millennials, Gen Z’s and younger, of course, the vast majority have neither. A 2011 Pew survey following the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq illustrated the point.
“During the past decade, as the military has been engaged in the longest period of sustained conflict in the nation’s history, just one-half of one percent of American adults has served on active duty at any given time.”
The trends in military service and their impact on opinion also have had their consequences. A decade later, Pew’s 2022 polling and research made clear that for the vast majority of younger Americans, the effect of military service as a spectator sport isn’t just about attitudes.
“Among new military recruits,” the 2022 Pew survey found, “30 percent have a parent in the military, and 70 percent report a family member in the armed forces. That’s a…striking number considering fewer than 1 percent of Americans have any military service time.”
The implications of Pew’s findings go beyond revealing who recruiters should hustle to make their quotas. The pool of personal relationships that has created confidence in the armed forces is not only shallow but shrinking. Put bluntly, bumper sticker boosterism notwithstanding, how Americans see the military isn’t what it seems.
Thank You For Your Service—the Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the US Military by Peter Feaver captures the problem well: confidence in the military is “high, but hollow.” If the brass installed by Donald Trump aren’t familiar with Feaver’s book, they need to listen up.
A Duke University professor who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, Feaver lays out why public confidence in the armed forces is likely to further erode. Drawing on two national surveys he commissioned, his analysis corroborates Pew’s findings. It isn’t reassuring.
“Our survey,” Feaver said in 2023, “found if you serve…and even if you didn't, if your family member served, you’re likely to have high confidence compared to somebody from a family without any veterans. But…those numbers are dwindling as the World War II generation has died off and the draft generation is starting to get older.”
Feaver’s conclusions: “We’re left with a population that shows high confidence in the military but in which fewer people have a personal connection to someone who has served. As those demographics continue, support for the military is going to go down.”
For the National Guard commanders of the troops on Washington DC’s streets as well as the generals in the Pentagon who understand why public support is vital to build and maintain world class armed forces, Feaver’s words should be a warning.
In Washington, DC, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the country, Americans are showing why in no uncertain terms.
Polling in August made clear that over half of Americans—52 vs. 43 percent—oppose the military on their own streets, viewing Trump’s action as authoritarian. Those polled who expressed opposition also said they expect more military interventions.
Less stark but no less significant, June polls found Americans—44 vs. 41 percent—opposed the use of military forces in Los Angeles. As for Californians, 68 percent opposed the National Guard and Marine presence while 32 percent supported it.
In Washington DC, meanwhile, 79 percent polled last week said they opposed the military’s deployment, noting they felt less safe because of the troops. Only 17 percent of the respondents in the District backed the National Guard’s presence.
America’s armed forces deserve recognition for their history as well as their service. They are heirs to a story of citizen soldiers who took up arms to defend the country, not oppress their fellow Americans.
Set aside for the moment President Trump’s lies and authoritarian ambitions in claiming only armed forces can deal with his cockeyed propaganda that rampant crime must be quelled. His political ploy and psychoses are too obvious to mention, much less address.
As Americans watch armed soldiers patrol the nation’s capital alongside masked squads with their Gestapo-like tactics and round-ups, no past victories or tunes of glory will overcome guilt by association or its consequences.
The risks to American confidence in the political integrity of their armed forces and their commanders are real. It needs to be the generals’ top-of-mind.
We should have brought back the draft years ago.