"'Only when the privileged classes perform military service, only when elite youth are on the firing line, does the country define the cause as worth young peoples' blood and do war losses become acceptable. The answer to what constitutes vital national interests is found not so much on the cause, itself, but in who is willing to die for that cause.'" - Charles Moskos

Lance Mannion: "There is no guarantee that the Republic will last forever, that we won't go the way of others before us and devolve into dictatorship or monarchy. It seems to me that Americans are increasingly more impressed by wealth and celebrity, increasingly more willing to live as spectators to their own governance, increasingly less interested in and concerned about our history and the principles on which the nation was built and by which it survives."