A theme from research on military and veteran attitudes is that there is more diversity than we assume.

People want to deploy or don’t and support the use of force or don’t for different personal, political, & cultural reasons.

The military & veterans are a they, not an it. 1/6 https://twitter.com/jason_k_dempsey/status/1334195406025224195

As @Jason_K_Dempsey alludes to, that means it is easy to politicize the mil by finding quotes/examples that support the opinion we hold.

In his book, also Jason describes a paradox of prestige that incentivizes vets to use their service for politics. 2/6 https://www.amazon.com/Our-Army-Soldiers-Civil-Military-Relations/dp/0691142254/ref=nodl_

But there is real diversity across different groups & individuals.

My research with Peter Feaver on Afghanistan shows most post-9/11 veterans really are more supportive of an Afghanistan troop reductions than older veterans and most civilians. 3/6 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-war-weary-americans-11606863481

And as @StevenBeynon observes, there likely is a lot of truth behind GEN Milley’s comments yesterday.

Many younger soldiers want to deploy for lots of personal, cultural, and professional reasons — some good and healthy, some myopic and immature. 4/6 https://twitter.com/stevenbeynon/status/1334176609071460356

In his great memoir, KABOOM, @MattGallagher0 wrote that he remembers being worried in the early 2000s that he’d miss the war and not get to deploy.

I genuinely felt that, too. But I don’t feel anything like that now — as meaningful as my service in combat deployments was. 5/6 https://twitter.com/jimgolby/status/1039530762855436290

But there are lots of reasons why service members and veterans hold the opinions they do.

It’s worth trying to understand those differences and why service members & vets hold them — esp. before we try to use them to back up our particular political position or argument. 6/6