Their War

Two Army recruiters manning an information stand last year during rush hour in the Times Square subway station in New York. (David Brabyn/Corbis - David Brabyn)

"They were exposed, out in the open, just sitting on the side of the road," Tuyishimire remembers. "They said, 'We're sitting here waiting for death.'" He says that later "we could hear them screaming. We could do nothing."

He's sitting in the Carolina sun with the three other Marines on the fire team that Tuyishimire leads. They've all grown quiet. Thoonk, go the M-203s. Thoonk.

"My mom has nightmares that someone tries to break into the house and kill the whole household. She comes out with her eyes wide. We're like, 'Mom, don't worry. It can't happen here.'"

Rifle fire chatters from an unseen range beyond the trees.

"Yeah, we're lucky," murmurs one of the Marines.

Most Americans seem to take their luck for granted. Even September 11, 2001, didn't motivate a surge of young people to enlist the way Tuyishimire's bitter experience in Rwanda motivated him. In the six years since, with America's wars dragging on overseas, the military services have struggled to meet recruiting goals. The Army recently widened the door to admit recruits in their early 40s.

"Warriors," bellows a sergeant on the firing range, "don't forget to hydrate!"

In the outside world, civilians tend to use the word "warriors" only when they're describing the fighting men of ancient or primitive cultures. But within the U.S. military establishment, "warriors" is a common form of address, even an e-mail salutation, as in this automatic message sent by a Marine public affairs officer: "Warriors, I will be out of the office until Monday."

The difference in the way the two groups, military and civilian, use this word reflects the growing gulf that yawns between them. Many of the soldiers and Marines interviewed for this article mentioned that when civilians try to connect with them and affirm their military service, the civilians often echo the Army's "Be all you can be" pitch: You'll learn valuable skills . . . It'll be a great résumé builder. It's as if, looking in from the outside, these civilians just want to see tidy uniforms and high-tech gadgetry, as if soldiering is a modern-day job like any other.

Infantrymen, on the other hand, learn that the military's basic job is to break the enemy's will by killing him, or threatening to. Looking at their training from the inside, infantrymen conclude that their job hasn't fundamentally changed since the days when naked men threw spears at one another to protect their families. It's an ancient role, and they're proud of it.

But these days, that part of the job apparently makes America's civilians uneasy. World War II headlines celebrated accomplished military killers and called them heroes. Second Lt. Audie Murphy mowed down dozens of attacking German soldiers, won the Medal of Honor and went on to become a movie star. Today, U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who win medals for successfully doing their jobs while obeying the laws of war might get local coverage. But the brightest national spotlight is reserved for killers who are war criminals, such as the alleged perpetrators of the Haditha massacre, or heroes who are victims, such as prisoners of war. American civilians no longer seem comfortable labeling a soldier as both a killer and a hero.

In fact, they're not particularly comfortable with the military in general.