On Service

I don't remember when it started, but I was startled the first time someone, on finding that I was retired military, said: "thank you for your service."

I understood that the person who said it was sincere, and meant it respectfully, but it made me uncomfortable all the same. Ever since, I have tried to understand the source of my discomfort.

I just finished reading Drift by Rachel Maddow, and I think I now understand why such statements make me uncomfortable. It implies that military service or, perhaps more broadly any kind of public service is an extraordinary thing. According to Ms. Maddow, in today's America, only one percent of adults have served in the military.

It was not that way in the America in which I grew up. Service was taken for granted. Every young man was subject to military service, and public service in general was viewed in a positive light. A half century ago, President Kennedy told an entering class at the Naval Academy, "I can imagine a no more rewarding career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worth while, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.'"

But America's youth in those days were inspired to serve their fellow citizens in other ways as well. Young people flocked to the newly-created Peace Corps and recent college graduates actively sought positions in government service.

Like their predecessors who struggled to bring America  out of the Great Depression and who served victoriously in World War II (Tom Brokaw called them the Greatest Generation), this new generation chose to serve in a cause greater than themselves.

Would that those of us who remember those times can inspire our latest generation of Americans to such service.