Military Obligation Quotes
At the time veterans would have to wait for up to a year till they could get their records and their benefits from the Veterans Administration which had insufficient budget while the Defense Department had as much money as the Military-Industrial complex could lobby for.
Theoretically every male citizen was supposed to serve in the Militia at that time. But if one did not, the penalty was a small fine. It became a status symbol. Those middle and upper class men who could get commissions as officers would serve, but those who did not have the political connections or the money to equip his own troops, would rather pay the fine than serve with men he thought beneath him. There is a , romantic American myth about the Militiamen in Colonial and Revolutionary America—the citizen soldiers who would leave their farms and rise to the military necessity of the day. However, not only were the militia very hard to muster to duty, but most actually didn’t own or have experience with firearms, and the prevailing opinion of knowledgeable military leaders from George Washington on down was that the militia were not very good soldiers. See {613015}, {613016}, {613022}, {613027}, {621987}, {621988}, {613030}, {613033}, & {613056}
After the American Revolution one of the great fears of many of the political leaders was a standing army. So there was little concern about the morale of the officers and enlisted men. Further, the national government and the governments of the individual states were broke. Washington and Hamilton wanted the soldiers to be paid their back wages and saw this as the highest priority for the new nation. Most others did not agree, and viewed the new military back wages as equal to the many other obligations. Hamilton, saw this as an active hostility to the military and was very overt about his castigation of Congress. Washington agreed but was far more diplomatic and could never accept the fact that the military did not owe loyalty to the nation and the Congress.
The reality of slavery in some Muslim countries is the cause for the last phrase.
