A cousin sent this to me today. I have not seen it printed here on the UHH before. My apologies if it has been here before. It certainly can't hurt to be seen again. One man's opinion, and mine. I am certain many will agree. What do you readers think?

Dennis

This is a well-written article about a father who put several of his kids through expensive colleges but one wanted to be a Marine. Interesting observation by this dad. A very interesting commentary that says a lot about our failing and fallen society.

By Frank Schaeffer of the Washington Post

"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 conflict in Afghanistan, 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 in 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, 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.

Oh, how I wish so many of our younger generations could read this article. It makes me so sad to hear the
way they talk with no respect for what their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers experienced so they can live in freedom. Those clowns in pro football that refuse to stand for our flag and national anthem are so clueless. The Hollywood celebrities
that support them are pathetically entitled. Freedom has been replaced with Free-Dumb.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Ex-Sergeant, U.S.A.F., 12 years, then had to get out after 'Nam, because I qualified for food stamps and had a mentally ill wife that Congress in its infinite wisdom had decided that enlisted personnel dependents did not deserve emotional mental treatment, and I had to get out to make some money. I had been going for 30, at least I worked my butt off and got an fantastic education in electronics that I could not have afforded out of high school. Neither my family nor I could afford to send me or any of my other three brothers and sister to college.

Blessings on you and yours.

Thank you so much for your service to our country. What happened to you should not have happened to anyone but unfortunately, as they say, bad things happen to good people. I am glad you are, seem, to be doing well through your own hard work. Many just sit back and allow their anger to overtake them while living off the government. You could be the poster child that through hard work and perseverance a person can obtain what they want. But one does have to work at it as you so admirably did.

I know at various times military families have qualified for food stamps. To me, as it should be for every American, that is totally unacceptable. We owe everything to those who serve in the military and to not give them a fair wage is one of the most important problems attacking the morale of our military members. Thankfully President Trump just gave our military a raise in pay.

Thank you again,

Dennis