"It's funny how serving your nation makes you part of something larger than yourself but also sets you apart. You realize this when you come home and find so many people who know what you've done but can't personally relate to any of it. The military now stands apart from average Americans' lives as it never has before. About 1.4 million people are on active duty in our armed forces today- about half the number that were on active duty fifty years ago. About 2.4 million have served in the Global War on Terror, as it's known. That last number sounds pretty big but it's just 0.77 percent of America's population of 313 million- a truly shocking instance of the "1 percent versus 99 percent" problem. In Congress, where our political decisions are made (or not), only 21.8 percent of our representatives have served in the military. That's down from 74 percent in 1971, when the numbers were pushed up by the draft. That was also a time when you didn't need to be wealthy to run for elected office and most congressmen understood that the term "enemy" referred to someone with a gun on the other side of a demilitarized zone, not someone in the opposing political party."