Tag military

Do Veterans Feel Valued in 2025?

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Last Veterans Day, we explored the many ways to be a veteran. Our research found clear differences in how connected young people are to the military. Nearly one in five academy cadets (19%) and ROTC cadets (20%) came from military families—almost double the share of civilian students (11%). Meanwhile, only 4% of civilians were veterans themselves, compared to 9% of academy cadets and 11% of ROTC cadets.

That’s a reminder that the next generation of officers and leaders often has deep family or personal ties to service. But how do those who have already served—the young veterans now in college or training—feel about how society views them? Do they think Americans truly appreciate their service?

Back on Memorial Day, our data showed that 55.8% of young people believed Americans appreciate veterans’ sacrifices. Yet, cadets—especially those at the academies—were less convinced that the public understood their work. Now, with new data from 4,307 respondents, we can take a closer look at veterans’ own perspectives.

Roughly 9% (360) identified as having prior military service—whether active duty, reserves, or National Guard. When asked whether “most members of civilian society have a great deal of respect for the military,” 82% of veterans agreed, along with 80% of civilians (Table 1). But when the question shifted to understanding—“The American people understand the sacrifices made by those who serve in the U.S. military”—agreement dropped: 61% of veterans versus 57% of civilians said yes. Even so, that small gap was statistically meaningful (p<.003).

 VeteransCivilians
Most members of civilian society have a great deal of respect for the military.  82.1%  79.6%
The American people understand the sacrifices made by the people who serve in the U.S. military.  61.4%  57.1%

Table 1. Percent Agreement that Americans Respect and Understand the Sacrifices of Service Members

The data show something subtle but powerful: Young veterans feel respected—but they also sense a gap in understanding. They believe the average American appreciates their service but doesn’t fully grasp what military life demands—the long deployments, transitions home or to another forward deployment, long working at home hours, and physical, emotional, social and psychological tolls associated with military life. That disconnect may not stem from apathy but from distance: only a small share of young Americans today personally know someone who serves (Pew Research Center 2011).

Sociologists and other scholars often call this the civil–military gap—the social distance between those who serve and those who do not (Feaver and Kohn 2001). Our findings suggest that while respect remains high, understanding remains thinner. That’s an important distinction for educators, policymakers, and communities trying to bridge the divide.

So, this Veterans Day, it’s worth asking:
Respect is clear—but are we taking the time to understand?

References

Feaver, Peter and Melvin Kohn. 2001. Soldiers and Civilians.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Pew Research Center. 2011. The Military-Civilian Gap: Fewer Family Connections. Research Report. Accessed from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/11/23/the-military-civilian-gap-fewer-family-connections/?utm_source=chatgpt.com.

The Many Shades of Veteran, Part 1

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Veterans Day is set aside each year to recognize all people who have served honorably in active duty military. While our data focuses on cadets, we have created a unique window to the many ways that people can be a veteran in today’s society. And, it makes a difference. Being a veteran gives you access to any number of services in society. Organizations like USAA provide insurance and other services not only to military personnel but also veterans and their families. USAA commercials with famous football player Rob Gronkowski (New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers) comically shows him trying to become a member of USAA only to be turned away each time because he has no ties to the military.

Our data show quite a variety of connections to the military. In this post, we focus on the connection between current military status (cadet or not), coming from a family in which at least one parent served (Brat), and previous military status (veteran). Does being a cadet relate to military status in other ways, like being from a military family and previous military experience? Morten Ender’s edited book, Military Brats and Other Global Nomads does a good job demonstrating the ties among military personnel and their families. Veterans produce veterans just like preachers produce preachers, though some rebel against the identity (see Preacher’s Kid (PK) Syndrome). Figure 1 demonstrates the many ways that military ties can occur among people in our samples.

Figure 1. Diagram Outlining the Ways that People can be Connected to the Military

For this post, we utilize some of our data from 2017 to 2024 (N=3540). Here, we see a good percent of our cadets come from military families (Table 1). Nineteen percent of our academy cadets and 20 percent of ROTC cadets come from military families compared to only 11 percent of civilian students. While a much lower percent of our sample actually served in the military, the divide in levels of service among civilians and military cadets is similar: nine and 11 percent of cadets, respectively, had military service prior to becoming a cadet. About four percent of civilian students had prior military service.

Academy CadetROTC CadetCivilian
Military Brat18.7%20.2%11.2%
Veteran (prior service)8.8%11.4%3.6%
Table 1. Distribution of Veteran or Military Family Status by Current Military Status

We will continue this analyses in future posts, to answer the question: does additional military exposure impact attitudes toward military service in a positive or negative way, if at all? Like PK syndrome, additional exposure could create a negative sentiment toward the military and its mission. Alternatively, it could strengthen their attitudes, at least among those who are willing to stay in service.

We wish a happy veterans day to all of those serving in the military now and who have honorably served their country in the past.

From Doctors to Military Officers: Occupational Prestige Scores among Civilians and Cadets

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According to the sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), differences in a society result from the three Ps: power, personal wealth, and prestige. While power is political and wealth is economic, prestige is socio-cultural. It results from subjective judgements people attribute to people or groups of people. For example, jobs that groups of people occupy have prestige assigned to them and thus become stratified in society—not viewed or treated as equal. This post reviews occupational prestige comparing cadets and civilians, emphasizing the relative prestige of military officers among these groups.

The study of occupational prestige rankings dates back almost 100 years (see Grusky, 2001; Nakao and Treas, 1994). Donald J. Treiman’s book Occupational Prestige in Comparative Perspective (Academic Press, 1977) offered one of the first comprehensive studies comparing perceived prestige rankings of jobs and occupations across nations including the United States. In the book, the top five occupations ranked on a scale from one to 100 include physician, Supreme Court judge, college president, astronaut, and lawyer (cited in Henslin, 2019). For sixty other countries the top five order is college president, Supreme Court judge, and astronaut. Physician and college professor are tied for fourth. The bottom three in the U.S. are street sweeper, shoe shiner, and janitor and for the other countries shoe shiner and garbage collector and street sweeper are tied for second on the bottom. Later studies in the U.S. located physicians, college professors, lawyers, dentists, architect, and bankers in the top five with newspaper vendor at the bottom (National Opinion Research Center, 2016; Smith et al., 2019 cited in Schaefer, 2022).

Unfortunately, in almost all the earlier studies, “military officer” or “soldier” is not included as a coded occupational classification system in the U.S. Bureau of the Census (Nakao and Treas, 1994:8) in the prestige rankings. Scholars continued to leave out the military in the 2000’s despite the suspension of the draft and the military being all-volunteer (Frederick, 2010). By the way, “Sociologist” as an occupation, has ranked in the top 10 in at least one study (Smith and Son, 2014 cited in Giddens et al., 2020).

We asked college undergraduates to rank 16 professions from most prestigious (#1) to least prestigious (#16). In our case, the lower the score (the mean) the higher the ranking. The top 10 are listed in Table 1. The data covers a total of nine years from 2008 to 2016. The table below shows physicians continue to rate the highest with military officer, lawyer, diplomat, and university professor rounding out the top five (see Overall Mean score). This is consistent with the Harris Poll of roughly the same period.

Profession / OccupationOverall MeanROTC CadetCivilian StudentAcademy Cadet
Medical Doctor2.882.902.193.15
Military Officer3.923.256.283.16
Lawyer5.885.764.616.42
Diplomat6.377.907.295.88
Professor6.787.116.386.86
Engineer7.057.167.027.04
Manager/CEO8.288.729.507.69
Entrepreneur8.799.008.958.68
Priest, Clergy8.979.0010.008.96
Pharmacist9.298.507.7010.10
Table 1. Occupational Prestige Rankings among Military Cadets and Civilian College Students

Next, we wanted to see if differences exist across our three undergraduate groups. In this case civilian undergraduates and the two groups destined to be actual military officers once they graduate—ROTC and military academy cadets. The findings in the table above show significant similarity for the three groups—ROTC, Civilian, and Military Academies undergraduates. Civilian undergraduates are strikingly similar in prestige rankings to their military-affiliated peers. Of some interest, for all three groups physicians remain at the top for all three groups. But. For civilians, lawyers are perceived as slightly more prestigious than military officers. And engineers crack the top five for ROTC cadets and civilians. Most striking, civilian undergraduates with limited or no military affiliation show markedly similar status rankings as their military affiliated peers. Treiman’s (1977) notion appears to hold—perceptions of the prestige hierarchy hold across numerous subgroups in societies. In the present case, showing no notable gap between military-affiliated and civilians.

References

Croteau, David and William Hoynes. 2019. Experience Sociology, NY: McGraw Hill Education, pp. 343-344. 

Frederick, Carl. 2010. A Crosswalk for Using Pre-2000 Occupational Status and Prestige Codes with Post-2000 Occupation Codes. Center for Demography and Ecology, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin. Available online here.  

Harris Poll, The. 2014. Doctors, Military Officers, Firefighters, and Scientists Seen as Among America’s Most Prestigious Occupations. The Harris Poll (September 10).  Available online here. 

Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P. Appelbaum, and Deborah Carr. 2020. Introduction to Sociology (12th Edition). NY: W.W. Norton & Company. Pp. 248-249. 

Grusky, David B. (ed.) 2001. Social Stratification in Sociological Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 

Henslin, James M. 2019. Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach. Boston, MA: Pearson. 

Nakao, Keiko and Judith Treas. 1994. “Updating Occupational Prestige and Socioeconomic Scores: How the New Measures Measure up,” Sociological Methodology, 24:1-72. 

National Opinion Research Center, 2016. General Social Surveys, 1972-2014: Cumulative Codebook. Available online here. 

Schaefer, Richard T. 2022. Sociology: A Brief Introduction (14e). NY McGraw Hill, pp. 182-183. 

Treiman, Donald J. 1977. Occupational Prestige in Comparative Perspective. New York: Academic Press.