We need to make military service commonplace once more

As Veterans Day approaches, think about this. 2000 Census data says 66 percent of Americans over 65 are veterans while less than 8 percent of those under age 65 are veterans. About one-half of 1 percent of our citizens are on active duty in the Armed Forces.

If you wonder about the radical decline in military service, it comes from the aging and dying WWII and Korean War veterans, the elimination of the draft in the 1970s and longer service by fewer men and women in an all volunteer force. If Vietnam era veterans are removed to eliminate the effects of the draft, only 4 percent of those under 65 are veterans.

It is troubling that we have become a nation of “Let someone else do it!” Even as a father of two young girls, I favor compulsory military service.

I believe our youth and our nation would benefit from young citizens learning what it means to serve something larger than your own self-interest.

Voters, journalists, and even elected leaders who make the laws and decide on military action, increasingly lack the perspective that comes from military service. I don’t think that serves us well.

I am frequently reminded of this disconnect when I see Hollywood’s utter stupidity reflected in TV characters meant to portray a military person as someone who mindlessly loves to march and salute and act in a rigid way devoid of common sense. What must Hollywood writers and actors think of those who serve as they construct ridiculous tin soldier characters?

Whether they serve as a career, or only a few years like me, military service and especially combat can open your eyes to things others may never see.

Young people we can arguably call kids grow into mature men and women quickly when they join the Armed Forces. They learn painfully fast they are able to competently do things they formerly would have thought impossible. They learn to subordinate their childish focus on themselves and become a reliable part of a team that demands excellence from each person. They learn respect for authority, the virtue of sacrifice, the benefits of order, pride in their country and in themselves.

These young people who stand ready to risk their lives when their country calls learn responsibility, self-discipline and the judgment to distinguish between the trivial and the substantial.

These are traits we all hope our children develop, but the U.S. Armed Forces seems to accelerate and intensify the process with their very own pressurized cram course on character and responsibility.

When I was just 21 years old the U.S. Army entrusted me with the world’s most advanced helicopter gunship at the time, the Cobra. And when our country sent us to war in Vietnam long ago, my brothers and I learned some things in battle you don’t learn any other place.

We learned by watching those who came before us the true meaning of courage and loyalty and trust.

We learned that courage is not the absence of fear; courage is getting the job done while you’re so scared your hands shake.

Some of our brothers weren’t old enough to buy a beer, but we learned to trust them on the ground and in the air to do the right things, even under fire. We came to deeply value the same trust they placed in us, and that mutual trust would form a bond that can’t be explained in words.

We quietly feared dying in battle, but there was something we feared even more. We knew if we should panic under fire and fail to do our job, we might lose our brothers’ trust or we might lose their lives, and that we feared more than anything.

As we struggled to survive together, we learned that we loved one another, though as young men we would never say such a thing out loud.

We learned that when the shooting started we weren’t fighting for the flag, we were fighting for each other.

We learned the ordinary guy next to us would do the most extraordinary things when his brothers were in danger. Others might call it heroism, we called it, “Just doing what any of the other guys would do.”

We learned the first casualty of war was our innocence, and that war is a terrible, sad, unforgiving, unfair, chaotic, brutal and vulgar affair with little of the glory Hollywood pumps into war movies.

We learned the loss of young friends dying a violent death, and that the depth of those losses gets lost in the numbers.

We learned to treasure our citizenship and freedom, and would become fiercely patriotic whether we were Democrats or Republicans.

We learned that we Americans live our lives under a bubble of protection and plenty that we wrongly think of as our birthright. We learned the true natural order of things is the law of the jungle: eat or be eaten, kill or be killed, and that brutal world might pierce our bubble at any time, as it did for just one day on 9/11.

We learned when we go to war we should do so with overwhelming force to win quickly, before the mainstream media begins to turn the tide of public opinion against us.

We learned that self-indulgent anti-war protesters at home would encourage the enemy trying to kill us.

I wouldn’t trade one of my brothers, or any veteran, for a trainload of protesters, or a boatload of politicians like Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) who encourage our current enemy in Iraq with anti-war public statements, and then piously claim to support our troops.

Our young men and women in Iraq today are learning many of the same lessons we learned in Vietnam. One lesson I hope they don’t learn is the disappointment of coming home to an ungrateful nation, and that is where all of you come in.

Imagine how hard it is to be separated from your family and go to work every day in a setting where an enemy is trying to kill you. Imagine how much harder it must be when the media drumbeat at home says what you are doing is wrong.

By comparison, how hard would it be to walk up to a stranger returning from service in Iraq, or an aging WWII veteran, shake their hand, look them square in the eye and say, “Thank you for serving your country. Thank you for fighting for freedom.”

For too many people living under the protection of the bubble, that would be too difficult. Lack of character and strength in our country has become too common. Little appreciation that our freedom is fragile and comes at a cost has become too common. No feeling of responsibility to do our part has become too common.

As many of you know by your own experience, you don’t have to join the military or go to war to build strong character and learn life’s important lessons. But now when it seems our youth need it more than ever, military service is out of vogue and veteran ranks are diminishing rapidly.

We would do well, I think, to return to the days when military service was valued, and when it was common. Meanwhile the perspective of veterans is becoming rare, and I believe that is a tragic loss for our country.