I just read this article in the Washington Post. On first glance, I found it surprising that so many civilians don't know anyone in the military. I can think of E, the Air Force captain who likes to express herself with shoes. There's M, too, a Navy enlisted woman who has to make a tough decision about reenlisting next year. Or R, a young Air National Guardswoman who couldn't decide if she'd done the right thing by joining rather than going to college (she's been deployed to Iraq). Or K, the Marine who was sent overseas for months with while his wife and baby leave the place they've been living to go stay with family for a while. Or probably a dozen more who I've been friends with for a while, before they or I move on.

But despite a reasonably large amount of experience with the military, I was pretty surprised to learn that a pair of brothers I grew up with, in a nice middle class Atlanta neighborhood, are serving in Iraq. That isn't a choice that many people I grew up with made, but I have a ton of respect for them for making it.

I agree with the article, it's a bad thing that our leaders think of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines as being part of the other. They really aren't. But it's a symptom of a society where for most people of my class and age, joining the military isn't something that even crosses their mind. It's so foreign to their experience.