[sauropod]

This guy absolutely nails it.

I donno if Speak Out will be at Ft. Bragg or not, but i thought this article will be relevant to 20 March. 'Pod

[sauropod]

Ping.

[adakota]

printed. Will read it later. Thanks for your time in transcribing this and giving us this post.

[Jeff Chandler]

Speak Out will be the media representatives of military relatives. Coming to the morning news shows soon.

[MoJo2001]

Ping to a wonderful article!

[cyclotic]

One of my greatest regrets in life is not joining the military. I was raised in the late 60's and 70's. Graduated HS in '81 as the product of a liberal school. I had virtually no contemporaries who were in the military.

Of course, I grew up quick. 3 years later, I drove 400 miles to vote for Ronaldus Maximus. (OK, I was too scatterbrained to remember to get a absentee ballot) Coolest part was that I brought a friend along for the ride and ended up married to her.

[Aeronaut]

Very profound. I am giving a careers in aviation presentation in a high school on Thursday. I can't wait to get to the part about military aviation. I almost hope the teacher tries to stop me.

[Soaring Feather]

Thanks so much for posting this wonderful article.

[SICSEMPERTYRANNUS]

ping

[mountaineer]

Frank Schaeffer, son of the great Christian writer/missionary/teacher Francis A. Schaeffer, had an epiphany of sorts when his boy joined the Marines:

My Heart on the Line
Frank Schaeffer

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 on the Volvo-driving, higher education-worshiping North Shore of Boston. I write novels for a living. I have never served in the military. [Mountaineer's note: In case anyone wonders, Frank couldn't have served even if he wanted to, as he had polio as a 2-year-old and wouldn't have passed a physical]

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?" 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, 3,000 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, an African American 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 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. He is my heart. link

His book is "Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps"

[leadpenny]

Keeping Faith : A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps
by John Schaeffer (Author), Frank Schaeffer (Author)

Good synopsis and reviews on the Amazon link. The Father/Son authors were on C-SPAN last year. I still remember Frank Schaeffer describing his journey to Parris Island for John's graduation from Basic Training.

[elbucko]

"There has been a 'disconnect' between the men and women who defend our nation and those who are the beneficiaries of that service."

This guy absolutely nails it.

He certainly does. Put another way, just before WWII:......."People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." - George Orwell.

It's not that the "ready rough men" are any rougher, it is that those who peaceably sleep, work, study, have become softer.

[paul51]

Great post. Godspeed to all the troops and their families

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

PING for a great article!
sauropod : Thanks!

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

A quick post and run (REAL busy!)

http://www.frankschaeffer.net/pages/1/index.htm
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/SchaefferMyHeart.htm

[sheltonmac]

Pack your bags, gentlemen. We're going on a guilt trip.

...Some of us served. Many, including me, did not. Vietnam was our excuse. I say excuse because since that war ended, the upper classes - especially the most educated - never regained any sense of moral obligation to serve, let alone the desire to see their children volunteer...

...The absence of the educated and wealthy elite from our military exacerbates the sense that something un-American and unfair is going on when "my kid" gets sent to war and "rich kids" do not. A country where fairly shared sacrifice is the norm might be less apt to breed groups like Speak Out...

...when 19 hijackers killed 3,000 Americans one bright morning...parents looked around, as if waking from a dream, and fervently hoped there were a few good men and women selfless and strong enough to shoulder an 80-pound pack and sling on an M-16 to defend the rest of us...

...We went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military performed brilliantly. But the war was not over in 15 minutes. It wasn't cut to the pace of a TV commercial. Disney had not supplied a happy ending. Our elites did not like to see our military force used. Our war was fought on the ground, not with cruise missiles. Our attention wandered. Some military parents grew impatient. When where their children coming home? What the hell was this word "sacrifice" supposed to mean?...

...Like myself, most military parents honor the fact that our children took an oath to serve. Most of us are more patient than members of the chattering classes who write editorials about how our American policy is failing in the Middle East. Most of us know that even if it does fail, we must still try to transform the breeding grounds of hopelessness, terror and oppression into places where freedom and human rights are given a chance...

...I think most military parents feel as I do, though maybe the press doesn't quote us as often as it trumpets the fears of a few oversolicitous hand-wringing military "soccer moms" (and dads) wailing "Be careful!" as their sons and daughters try to defend us. I hope such parents come to understand that they are putting our children at risk by making us look weak and divided to terrorists who already dismiss us as soft.

Hmmmmmm. I guess its only the unpatriotic parents who dare to question why their children are being sent to kill and die.

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Thanks for the ping mojo! It is a great story. Thanks Pod for typing it out for us! I see you already pinged Armymarinemom.. I read her thread the other day.

God bless these parents for fighting for freedom!

[RAY]

Thanks for the posting. I hope many read this!

[jolie560]

Some good points are made in this article.

I was drafted in 1967--in one of the last groups of "Whitehall Street" (NYC) draftees.

I was not happy about it, but I served my time and was Honorably discharged in 1971. I have met very, very few men of my age who have ever served a day in the US military.

[kristinn]

Thanks. This is also relevant for the rally on the 13th.

[international american]

Thanks for a great post!