Charles Moskos War Quotations

For probably the first time in American history, civilians are asked to make no sacrifices in a time of war. We don't have a draft. There is no gas rationing the way there was in World War II. There is no increase in taxes; we get tax cuts instead. These acts are small ways of showing some recognition, because we're not doing it any other way.

Only when the privileged classes perform military service, only when elite youth are on the firing line, does the country define the cause as worth young peoples' blood and do war losses become acceptable, ... the answer to what constitutes vital national interests is found not so much on the cause, itself, but in who is willing to die for that cause.