Wow

[Advisor]

Washington Post
> November 26, 2002
> Pg. 29
> My Heart On The Line
> By 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.
> 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.
> Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book, co-written with his son,
> Marine Cpl. John Schaeffer, is "Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About
> Love and the United States Marine Corps." He will answer questions about
> this article in a Live Online discussion at 1 p.m. today at
> www.washingtonpost.com.

[TheOldSarge]

Nice he woke up ... too bad it took so long. Too bad more people are still "asleep."

The Old Sarge

[thebrad]

wish my parents would read this...