The US abolished direct military conscription, but has replaced it with an indirect system of economic conscription: young people from poor backgrounds often see no opportunity to get ahead except through the army.

The article is mistaken on a couple of important points. First, Nixon did damp down the movement to end the Vietnam War, by pulling the US army out of Vietnam, but that was not the permanent effect that the article presents. The US antiwar movement was quite strong for the first few years of the occupation of Iraq.

It also omits another, deeper blindness about thanking troops for "serving their country" -- for the most part, that's not what they are doing. And, in Iraq, many of them figured that out; (then) Bradley Manning was far from alone. A soldier wrote to me, responding to what he saw in stallman.org, saying that the troops in his unit felt that they were in Iraq to support an empire.

I think we should offer troops condolences rather than thanks. Many of them joined up intending to serve their country, and they were cheated of the opportunity.