{"id":1393,"date":"2009-11-28T10:16:48","date_gmt":"2009-11-28T10:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2009-11-28T10:16:48","modified_gmt":"2009-11-28T10:16:48","slug":"the_dangers_of_not_having_skin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1393","title":{"rendered":"The Dangers Of Not Having ‘Skin In The Game’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This a bit of historical perspective on where we are today in the ‘war on terror.’<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

When Hitler came to power in Germany in January of 1933, there weren’t too many people alarmed by what was happening in Germany.   <\/span>He quickly began building and populating the concentration camps (Dachau opened in March 1933), but the rest of the world was unaware of what was happening in them and thus unconcerned.   <\/span>When Hitler began occupying the countries around him, the British still thought they could make peace with him.  <\/span> <\/span>No one wanted a repeat of World War I.  <\/span>By 1940, Great Britain was the only country at war with Hitler’s Germany, and America had amended its neutrality legislation in 1939 in order to lease weapons to Great Britain.  <\/span>Americans were divided on whether or not to enter the war.  <\/span>Technically, they had no ‘skin in the game.’   <\/span>There was no outrage at what was happening to the Jews because no one actually believed it was happening.  <\/span>Although the Evian Conference attendees in 1938 expressed sympathy for the Jews attempting to flee Germany, they refused to change their immigration policies to give them refuge (with the exception of the Dominican Republic).  <\/span>Until December 7, 1941, we had no ‘skin in the game.’<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Recently at a family event, I had lunch with some members of my extended family, all of whom were baby boomers or pre-baby boomers.  <\/span>We talked about the things our parents had done in their lifetimes.  <\/span>The parents represented included:  <\/span>a<\/span> <\/span>Jew who served in the French resistance while hiding his family from the Nazis, an Army nurse who served overseas in primitive conditions, an Army enlisted man who had been captured early in the Battle of the Bulge and spent the rest of the war in a German POW camp, and an Army officer who was part of the D-Day landing.  <\/span>My extended family had ‘skin in the game’ during World War II.<\/span>   <\/span>The generations that followed were different, however.  <\/span>Of the approximately ten people sitting at the table, only two had served in the military–one in the French Army and one in the US Navy.  <\/span>Of the families represented, only one had a connection with someone currently serving in the military.  <\/span>According to <\/span>chacha.com<\/a>, there are 3,060,000 people in the military and reserves accounting for about 1% of the U. S.’s population of 305,816,827 people.<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/h2>\n

Today we have the best military in the world.  <\/span>The men who volunteer for our Armed Services are the cream of the crop.  <\/span>They are well-trained and professional, but because they are an all volunteer army, very few of us have ‘skin in the game.’  <\/span>Except to our soldiers and the people who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001, the war on terror is an abstract concept related to something that happened in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D. C., more than eight years ago.  <\/span>The protests against the war have not even caught fire because there is not a draft–again, most of us have no ‘skin in the game.’<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

It is a sad fact that until terrorism directly affects our country again, the outrage against civilian trials for terrorists will be muffled, the protests against the war will lack passion, and America will tend to forget that we are fighting a war.  <\/span><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t have a solution to this problem.  <\/span>I just have a question, would the war in Afghanistan end more quickly if, as in World War II, more of us were aware that we do have ‘skin in the game?’<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

We as a country have ‘skin in the game!’<\/font><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This a bit of historical perspective on where we are today in the ‘war on terror.’ When Hitler came to power in Germany in January of 1933, there weren’t too many people alarmed by what was happening in Germany.   He … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}