This
is a well-written article about a father who put several of his kids
through expensive colleges but one son wanted to be a Marine.
Interesting observation by this dad. See below. A very interesting
commentary that says a lot about our failing and fallen
society.
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"Before
my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was defending
me. Now when I read of the war on terrorism
or the coming conflict in Iraq, it cuts to my heart. When I see a
picture of a member of our military who has been killed, I read his or
her name very carefully. Sometimes I cry.
In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress
blues and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way. John was
headstrong, and he seemed to understand these stern, clean men with
straight backs and flawless uniforms I did not.
I live in the Volvo-driving, higher education-worshiping North Shore of
Boston I write novels for a living. I have never served in the
military.
It had been hard enough sending my two older children off to Georgetown
and New York University. John's enlisting was unexpected, so deeply
unsettling. I did not relish the prospect of answering the question,
"So where is John going to college?" from the parents
who were itching to tell me all about how their son or daughter was
going to Harvard. At the private high school John attended, no other
students were going into the military.
"But aren't the Marines terribly Southern?" (Says a lot about
open-mindedness in the Northeast) asked one perplexed mother while
standing next to me at the brunch following graduation. "What a waste,
he was such a good student," said another parent. One parent
(a professor at a nearby and rather famous university) spoke up at a
school meeting and suggested that the school should “carefully
evaluate what went wrong."
When John graduated from three months of boot camp on Parris Island,
3000 parents and friends were on the parade deck stands. We parents and
our Marines not only were of many races but also were representative of
many economic classes. Many were poor. Some
arrived crammed in the backs of pickups, others by bus. John told me
that a lot of parents could not afford the trip.
We in the audience were white and Native American. We were Hispanic,
Arab, and African American, and Asian. We were former Marines wearing
the scars of battle, or at least baseball caps emblazoned with battles'
names. We were Southern whites from Nashville
and skinheads from New Jersey, black kids from Cleveland wearing ghetto
rags and white ex-cons with ham-hock forearms defaced by jailhouse
tattoos. We would not have been mistaken for the educated and
well-heeled parents gathered on the lawns of John’s private
school a half-year before.
After graduation one new Marine told John, "Before I was a Marine, if I
had ever seen you on my block I would've probably killed you just
because you were standing there." This was a serious statement from one
of John’s good friends, a black ex-gang member
from Detroit who, as John said, "would die for me now, just like I'd
die for him."
My son has connected me to my country in a way that I was too selfish
and insular to experience before. I feel closer to the waitress at our
local diner than to some of my oldest friends. She has two sons in the
Corps. They are facing the same dangers as
my boy. When the guy who fixes my car asks me how John is doing, I
know he means it. His younger brother is in the Navy.
Why were I and the other parents at my son's private school so surprised
by his choice? During World War II, the sons and daughters of the most
powerful and educated families did their bit. If the idea of the
immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason
those lucky enough to go to college dodged the draft, why did we not
encourage our children to volunteer for military service once that war
was done?
Have we wealthy and educated Americans all become pacifists? Is the
world a safe place? Or have we just gotten used to having somebody else
defend us? What is the future of our democracy when the sons and
daughters of the janitors at our elite universities
are far more likely to be put in harm’s way than are any of the
students whose dorms their parents clean?
I feel shame because it took my son's joining the Marine Corps to make
me take notice of who is defending me. I feel hope because perhaps my
son is part of a future "greatest generation." As the storm clouds of
war gather, at least I know that I can look
the men and women in uniform in the eye. My son is one of them. He is
the best I have to offer. John is my heart.
Faith is not about everything turning out OK;
Faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out."
