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In a message dated 1/29/05 12:32:09 PM, kbcdlovejo@... writes:

<< Southerners made up the majority of officers in the Revolutionary War, the
War of 1812, and the War Between the States---because they had horses and
money and could fund the war effort. They also brought many of their servants
(not slaves) and farmworkers as aids and enlisted personnel because of trust and
duty. Kind of 'feudal'.


I think Southerners have always felt a bit more of a sense of duty to country
because so many of the 'big' original settlers still held an allegiance to
the king---they were here not to escape tyranny, but to get MORE!<g> >>

Good analysis. Makes sense. Thanks!

I think you're right about the last resort take on the military in some
places. A family was interviewed on the news the other night. The dad was in the
military years ago (not a lifer), and one son just got back from Iraq, and
another's about to leave. He was expressing pride in them. It didn't sound
smart to me, or honorable. I didn't call him or say so or anything. <g>

One unschooled friend of ours really REALLY wants to join the marines. His
dad was a marine and he wants to be too, but he'll need to get 15 college
credits. He's working on it, but some of us (in our dishonorable state) are
secretly cheering for life to distract him and give him another idea. But that's
probably cruel, in a way, because if he wants it he wants it. And he could do
well, and live there for 20 years. Or he could die doing what he freely
chose to do and worked hard to obtain.

-=-Southerners are also more comfortable with the chain of command and
deference to authority. BUT, because of the legacy of rank (granted by the king), I
think Southerners don'thin the south, I think the heirarchy is still pretty
clear, and there are lessers all around, who might be addressed as "sir" but
it's a courtesy, and a condecension and a deigning, not an equal exchange of
"sirs." And when little kids are called "sir" that's just cute. It scares me,
but I'm so far away that my fear is not a factor. <g>

-=-It is truly considered *honorable* to serve in the military here, as
opposed to in other regions of the country where it is often seen as a last
resort.-=-

My dad had one honorable enlistment (WWII, war ended while he was on a troop
ship in the middle of the Atlantic, so he served in the occupation for a
couple of years) and one last resort enlistment (re-upped after he married my mom
and couldn't find a job he liked; he was a sergeant teaching people to drive
trucks, and repairing stuff, in Camp Chaffee, Arkansas).

The class system out here was, in my parents' childhoods and somewhat still,
landowners and hired hands. Ranchers rank. Farmers, iffier. Sharecroppers
are luckier than itinerate workers, which is what my mom's family did--pick
cotton.

Keith's dad (a Yankee, from Massachusetts) joined the navy in the late 30's
and was training pilots in Pensacola when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Keith
thinks he joined because of the depression. Last resort? But he was cooler than
my dad, because he was college material and was a Captain.

I'm rambling, but for those connecting dots, who knows what ramble might be a
missing bit to their evolving model?

Sandra