Whose Children Will Go to War?

Op-Ed, New York Times, Letter to the Editor

August 20, 2005

Author: Paul Kane, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2005-2008

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: International Security

NOTE

The following letter was written in response to Bob Herbert's op-ed "Blood Runs Red, Not Blue" which appeared in The New York Times on August 18, 2005.

To the Editor:

I wholeheartedly agree that the rich and the elites in the United States have an equal if not greater obligation to do national service, share the burdens of the war and be at risk in combat.

But I dispute Bob Herbert's statement: "College kids in the U.S. are playing video games and looking forward to frat parties while their less fortunate peers" are in Iraq.

Nearly 54 percent of all enlisted members of the Marine Corps Reserve today are college students or college graduates. During my service in Iraq in 2003, I met many senior enlisted Marine reservists in combat units who held master's degrees and left good jobs to go and fight.

Mr. Herbert does a disservice to our armed forces by lending furtherance to the idea that people serving in Iraq are the "less fortunate." The vast majority of Americans I have met in the military serve out of a sense of obligation as citizens to protect America, its allies and those around the world who cannot protect themselves.

Paul V. Kane
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 18, 2005

The writer is a Marine veteran of the Iraq war and a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

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