2019-10-21_Time

6 Time October 21–28, 2019

Conversation

This week’s special reporT on The u.s.

military, as a new generation joins its longest war,

is the latest in nearly a century of TIME coverage

of American armed forces and the allies fighting

alongside them. In recent decades, society has in-

creasingly focused on how much the military, its ac-

tions and the treatment of veterans square with the

nation’s ideals. In a 1981 cover on “forgotten war-

riors” from the Vietnam War, TIME reported that

the turbulent spirit of the ’60s had compounded an

already “abrupt, surreal transition” from the jungle:

“Citizens no longer knew what their citizenship

meant; men no longer knew what their manhood de-

manded. The war cost more than Americans could

immediately pay.” During the Iraq and Afghanistan

conflicts, TIME covers in 2011 and 2013 highlighted

vets who, after completing their uniformed service,

continued to exemplify citizenship by starting non-

profits and addressing every kind of wound.

In this week’s cover story, Elliot Ackerman, a

Marine veteran who is both a Silver Star recipient

and a National Book Award finalist, argues that an

all- volunteer military lets most Americans avoid the

cost of war. The U.S. had no “forever war,” Acker-

man notes, when it had a draft. At Parris Island, in

South Carolina, Ackerman interviewed and award-

winning photographer Gillian Laub made portraits

of new Marines born after 9/11 who are training for

the wars they have never known life without.

“A lot of people waste their time doing nothing,”

said Gregory Grammer of Myrtle Beach, S.C., one of

three teens featured on separate covers. “I can say

for sure that I joined the Marine Corps, and I did

something.”

The longest war

Ashley Luna Gorbea of Springfield, Mass., said

her earliest memory of the 9/11 wars is from middle

school. “They had a moment of silence, and I was

like, whoa, and I asked my history teacher what’s

so special about today. She said that 9/11 was a mo-

ment when the whole country came together, and

that really struck me. How something so big could

make us all unite.”

Read all of TIME’s past cover stories on the

military at time.com/vault

BACK IN TIME

1945

Americans learn what

it’s like to be combat

infantrymen in World

War II through Bill

Mauldin’s cartoons

2005

Three grads reflect

on how 9/11 and the

still new War on Terror

shaped their experience

at West Point

2018

TIME follows seven

Afghan children

recovering from injuries

sustained in a grenade

explosion

2011

Profiles of Iraq and

Afghanistan vets

who feel increasingly

isolated from

civilians in the U.S.

1980

TIME hosts a seminar

in NYC to discuss a

military personnel

shortage after the

draft ended in ’

△

Photographer

Laub at work in

Parris Island,

S.C., in early

October

LAUB: CARSON SANDERS