February 19, 2003

Today's reading for Armed forces and Society was pretty good. It was called Generations apart: Xers and Boomers in the Officers Corps. I jotted down one quote, "To an Xer authority was to be earned, not declared by position of fiat." In general the whole philosophy associated with Generation X resonated with me.

The basis for the study was on why junior officers were getting out. According to interviews two of the reasons were because the upper officers didn't understand them, and the army didn't provide the quality of life they were looking for. It went on and talked about how Xer's definition of loyalty and duty and most of the other values differ from the Boomers. The philosophy of Generation X described is pretty much post-modernism. Of course, though we live in a post-modern world, not everyone has post-modern ideas, and not all Generation Xers think in the way described.
I would prefer to believe that there are no absolutes. That, even though I don't agree with the institution's exact definitions of duty, etc, etc, because there are no absolutes it doesn't mean that I don't believe in duty, etc, etc.