Can a nation survive when less than 1% of its citizens are willing to fight to preserve it?

I agree the actual level of manning is up to the Congress. My point is that the American people are not willing to consider our children for service/sacrifice to the Nation.

LTC (Join to see) - Sir Im in agreement with you..and I understand your point.
I shake my head at the lackluster understanding and positioning of many of our citizens.
But I also understand the point of... Fight for what? Who is currently attacking the US?
If by a degree of separation you cite radical Islam or terrorists id say, ok I agree, but how is what we are doing by way of "fighting" accomplishing anything to that end?

The nation should offer up its children to create a standing force ready to fight Americas enemy's should they attack....all while hoping the attack never comes.

As for current attack by proxy,,Im not saying is not real, and I do agree it needs to be addressed... BUT is there something we could accomplish differently then what we are doing now if we had 4% willing to "fight?

If we had 10% willing to "fight" to stop the indirect attack on America ....what would we do with the additional 9% we are not already doing with 1% now?

I guess my issue is a lack of willingness. Are our actual battles are now reality TV for the Colosseum spectators?

LTC (Join to see) SGM Erik Marquez I think, or rather I hope that Americans will answer the call to fight when America is actually threatened. I think back to 9/11 and the patriotism shown by pretty much everyone. The response to go fight was staggering in my opinion. 16 years later we see that the wars didn't do what we thought and we get the "fight for what" attitude as mentioned above. But I feel confident that if someone, say the short fat kid in North Korea, dropped a nuke on American soil or directly attacked us with a conventional army, our recruiters would get carpel tunnel syndrome from processing all the volunteers to go fight.

LTC (Join to see) - Are you referring to an internal threat or external threat? I'd look at the total number of gun owners in America state by state and then look at total number of Veterans per state. There are 20 Million Veterans. Lets just take 50% of that as a fighting force, so 10 million Veterans. There are 55 Million Gun Owners for a total of 265 million guns. An Army Division is approx 16k personnel or 62.6 Divisions per 1 Million of the Veteran population. The Active Duty force has less than 10 Divisions. So, there is a large light force deep inside of America that would serve as an impediment to any attacking force. Our military was too small to contain and control Iraq. How in the world would some enemy control the vast distances inside America?

Both, but mainly concerned with the commitment of the nation. Are we committed to wearing Red,White, and Blue and saying Thank You or committed to actually defend her with enough numbers secure our whole geography? Personally, i am growing uncertain.

LTC (Join to see) - When have we ever had that idealist country?? Its never happened. Historically, only a third of Americans have fought for their country. A percentage has always hated America and what it stands for. Then there is a large percentage of folks that just don't care. But I say this, we drive trucks here in Texas, we fly six flags but there are two that we will fight for, we carry guns and we open doors for women and children, we stand and bow our heads at the beginning of every football game and we pray for strength and forgiveness of our sins to a Creator. I can say Texas will be secured by Texans.

Hope it's enough when/if it matters.