As I have been whiling away my time here in Afghanistan I find it enjoyable to watch digital copies of television series which I don't watch at home since a) I don't watch much TV to begin with and b) it's easier to watch a serial if you have multiple, consecutive seasons saved to your hard drive.
Recently I've been watching a show called Mad Men which depicts life in the 1960s. In season three a doctor who has failed in the civilian world joins the Army. He had failed to become a surgeon in the civilian world yet the Army, which presumably has lower standards then the rest of America allows him to waltz right in and take up the post for which he had previously been deemed unsuitable. I find this to be a disturbing story line. The obvious implication is that soldiers are less qualified, or inferior to their civilian counterparts. While, as a libertarian I will be the first to admit that the free market almost always outperforms its government run opposition, that is an indictment of the system and its inherent flaws, not the people who populate it, politicians aside. I often hear this accusation leveled against career soldiers and frankly I find it to be by and large untrue. All of the military doctors I have attended in my 13 year Army career have been more than the equal of the civilian doctors my family have been attended by. Furthermore I find the notion that people join the military because they can't make it in the "real world" to a bit offensive. Think what you will but some of the greatest men in history have been military men, and you underestimate them at your own peril.
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