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Without the statistics, Downing makes a similar point.
The rank and file of the US military come disproportionately if not mainly from small towns and rural areas, culturally distinctive parts of the country that instill beliefs and outlooks conducive to vigorous community life and also to ties among soldiers. While people in many urban and suburban areas over the last few decades have become highly individualistic, those in small towns and rural areas have maintained traditions of interdependence. Respect for authority in almost all forms took a beating during Vietnam, but regained strength away from the cities, especially during the Reagan years. Further, people in these communities view themselves as composing a redoubt of morality and tradition in a country that has become far too secular and hedonistic. Pride in military service is an integral part of community life in small towns and rural areas, though it has faded if not disappeared elsewhere.
The real question here becomes just what is the price, in national social cohesion, of America populating its armed forces from such a relatively small sub-section of its population, the rural, in many cases rapidly depopulating small red-state towns and communities of its between the coasts "heartland".
Downing's article is mostly upbeat, he hails the social cohesion of the American armed forces in Iraq as a marked contrast to the chaos of Vietnam. I wonder. Many political observers and commentators have noted the ugly political and social polarization of current American public life. This phenomenon is blamed on many factors, such as the increasing economic divide between rich and poor, the decline in influence and power of the two major political parties, the rise of talk radio and bloggers, the treatment given to prospective Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas in 1987 and 1991 respectively, etc.
The yawning divide between America's rural core and its cosmopolitan coastal periphery is one of the most obvious points of political and social division and polarization. After the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, Democrats noted with despair the county by county maps of the election results, with huge swaths of the American heartland painted red, denoting a George W Bush victory, and a smaller number of much larger population areas in and surrounding most major cities painted blue, denoting areas won by Al Gore or John Kerry. (As an example of this polarization, in 2004, Bush won Garfield county in Montana 90-8%, at the same time losing much larger San Francisco County in California by a similarly lopsided 83-15%.)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA17Ak04.html