America’s newest military recruits have no emotional connection to the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, the Tampa Bay Times is reporting.
Those recruits born after 1996 have grown up desensitized to global terrorism and are much more affected by the mass shootings across the U.S. particularly in schools, the newspaper noted.
“It doesn’t feel as serious as it must have been to the older generations,” said Isabelle Acevedo, an 18-year-old Air Force ROTC cadet at the University of South Florida, who intends to join the military.
She and others told the newspaper they are not certain why U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan or what sparked the war that has lasted their entire lifetime.
Interest in military service soared after 9/11, the newspaper noted. But it has slowed in the last few years, according to Capt. Nicholas Pine of the U.S. Army Tampa Recruiting Battalion.
About half of enlistments are now done to continue a family legacy, Army recruiters said.
Dalton Hongell, 18, a member of USF’s Air Force ROTC program, was just an infant on a military base when the first plane struck one of the World Trade Center towers in New York. After his mother was deployed, his aunt had to take care of him.
Even though the attack impacted his early childhood, it is not what drives him, the newspaper said. Rather, it is a commitment to his mother’s legacy and a sense of pride.
“It’s a duty that needs to be done,” said Hongell, who plans to join the Air Force.
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