[Rhodes22-list] Food for Thought

[Paul Grandholm]

> 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 jail house 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."