If You Never Served You Do Not Get To Have That Opinion

Rob Schneider apparently made a statement about reinstating the draft. Whether he was joking or not is almost beside the point.

Here is my issue with it.

Rob Schneider has never served in the military. Not a day. So the idea that he gets to weigh in on whether Americans should be forced into military service, whether young people should be compelled to put their lives on the line, is something I have a real problem with.

I feel the same way about any public figure, entertainer, politician, or otherwise, who has never worn a uniform but has plenty to say about sending other people’s children to war or mandating service for a generation they will never belong to. It is easy to have strong opinions about military policy when you have never had any personal stake in it.

I served. Eight years in the United States Air Force. I earned the right to have thoughts on this. That does not make my opinion the only one that matters, but it does mean I have some skin in the game. There is a difference between informed perspective and commentary from a distance, and that difference matters when the subject is human lives and national service.

Entertainers have every right to engage with the world around them. But reinventing yourself as a military policy voice when you have no service record and no personal connection to what you are advocating for is a reach. Stay in your lane, do your work, and leave the conversation about our soldiers to people who have actually been there.

Those of us who served are not interested in your draft opinion, Rob.