The question remains fresh in my head as I twirl around in my office chair.

“What is the current state of our military?”

I drift back to my active service . . . September 14th 2000: I raised my hand and took an oath to serve, in part inspired by the image of my father in uniform. His service moved us from the ghetto. Like many of the under privileged who join, the military can represent a way out of a deteriorating community. Give hope or at least a steady income to young parents; which, for most in this demographic, translates into success.

True patriotism, or rather blind patriotism manifested as a motivator in the early stages of my indoctrination. The sound of the bugle’s first call waking me gave me a sense of purpose. When I donned the battled dress uniform, images of my father complimented by the heavy exposure of Rambo, Commando and Top Gun made my transformation complete. I was now proud to be an American Mercenary.

I reflect on a statement that consumes me as a son, brother, father and as a veteran: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." The statement is part of a speech delivered April 4, 1967, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City.

If in 1967 silence was betrayal, then today, to speak would be considered unpatriotic. I offer these words to raise awareness to the condition of our service members, and to echo a voice that is often regulated into silence and through intimidation, into submission.

The three D’s–dejected, disenchanted and disciplined–best represent the current state of our military. Sure dejected sounds rather harsh, but by it I mean people feeling depressed, blue or down in spirit. Our service members and their support structures are exhausted and tired of false media, leadership flip-flops and global economic hypocrisies. These are just some of the contributions to the internal exhaustion that impedes the pursuit of peace and happiness by our military service members.

In absolute anonymity, a service member said, “The military is a place lacking sincere leadership. Rather it is a place where the drive to be a patriot is in fact a vehicle to sustaining a certain standard of living in a volatile economy.” In other words, folks simply want a job. With an ever-growing defense budget, Uncle Sam usually has plenty of money to entertain and volunteers are welcomed.

The underlying problem is more and more soldiers on the ground are beginning to see the hypocrisy and are finding it increasingly difficult to be proud about their military service. When you take the dejection derived from the hypocrisy of the military’s most senior leaders, combined with skills that don’t quite meet the bar in the civilian sector, you have an all volunteer military that has become indentured servants to The Army and Air Force Exchange Service, and prostitutes to a pimp that pushes a corporate agenda. All the while our service members are left wanting, still longing for transferable job skills that the commercials advertise.

It is the disenchantment that high-jacks our service members motivation and confidence to pursue aspirations in the civilian sector, sending them instead to early burnout, falling victim to the self destructive effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, Gulf War syndrome, alcohol and narcotic abuse. So often our service members are told, just as I was, that this is as good as it gets and there are no jobs in the civilian sector. Given such sound advice from their leadership, and a training schedule that allows little, if any, use of the college benefits, most service members never get to enjoy the carrot dangling on the end of their Kevlar.

In fact, the statistics shared by Military.Com which references the Department of Veteran Affairs, should outrage the parents of the young men and women that serve and further infuriate our service members, whether they are active duty or reservist: 97 percent of service members enroll in the GI Bill, but only 8 percent use all their education benefits and 30 percent never use any of their benefits at all. These statistics tell the story of the systems' lackluster approach to a soldier's personal development. A good leader has to wonder-is the low utilization of the GI Bill benefits (assistance with secondary education) a factor for over 200,000 homeless veterans or about 25 percent of our homeless population?

While Uncle Sam gets to pocket the monetary difference from the 30 percent who do not use the entirety of their benefits, our veterans suffer silently. It is only after the conflict and after sacrificing some of our best years, in some cases a marriage or a relationship with our children that we can depart without the threat of Stop Loss. Our service men and women bare the scars of abuse- they are beaten financially, emotionally and mentally by their military– all in the name of patriotism. The real agenda however is simple: If the military trains its workforce for better pastures soon there will be no workforce. It will have to rely solely on recruitment efforts, which historically is not enough to replenish the losing numbers.

The third D is discipline. Discipline is where we find another fantastic divide, an internal struggle where the soldier has to come to grips with implied versus direct discipline. Implied discipline is the assumption that the soldier is guiding his/her field of study and shaping their moral character through their discipline, i.e. what he/she chooses to do or not do. Direct discipline, however, implies a legitimate authority guiding his/her field of study and shaping their moral character through their discipline, i.e. what they can or cannot do.

Uncle Sam has direct discipline over its members and as a result can choose a path for them which shapes how they think, or don’t think for that matter. Our service members are often intimidated into mental submission; passivity against empowering policy is encouraged or you are considered the “smart guy.”More and more of our service members are asking questions and wanting to rock the boat. One of my buddies said “It is difficult to feel good about what you’re doing because you don’t even know what your doing. No one does…I just try to stay alive on missions and try not to blow all my money on bootleg DVD’s and Play Station games.”

Dejected, disenchanted and disciplined is the state of our military, but it does not have to stay like this. I have broken the cycle of silence in an attempt to show that the concerns whispered behind barracks walls are valid and more common amongst officer and soldier alike.

The perseverance, resilience and focus of our military men and women are worthy of envy, and the sacrifice of family and friends who support those involved is commendable and humbling. Those same efforts will convert this experience to empowerment when we focus our efforts on keeping our leadership accountable to those that served and continue to serve.