Confronting the Civilian-Military Disconnect

Confronting the Civilian-Military Disconnect

Confronting the Civilian-Military Disconnect

We have a society that on the one hand has become comfortable with war, and on the other hand wants to distance itself from it as much as possible.

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On last Sunday’s episode of Up, Chris Hayes engaged in an in-depth conversation about our culture’s use of the word “hero” to describe fallen servicemen and women. His comments set off a round of discussions on the nature of our wars, who’s fighting them and whether a TV pundit should even be empowered to deny or even confer such designations. On today’s show, Hayes confronted the heated debate he set off, saying that the responses he received after the episode illustrate a key point he was attempting to make with his comments: “We have a society that on the one hand has become comfortable with war, and on the other hand wants to distance itself from it as much as possible: to outsource it to contractors, to robots and to the 2.3 million volunteer men and women who have been asked to serve for longer durations than at any time in recent history.” Watch this clip for the full discussion.

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