Via Hugh Hewitt, we find an outstanding article about an outstanding young man - Track Captain Sean Barrett Ready to Serve His Country.
What's the big deal, you ask? Some guy who runs track is joining the military. Maybe you even think, must not have had any good job offers! Or, perhaps, dummy.
Well, I don't think that's the case, since Sean Barrett happens to be the captain of the Harvard track team. And he's joining God's Blessed Marine Corps.
“I think this is my generation’s greatest calling,” said Barrett. “Fighting for the freedom of others is a uniquely American value. Protecting my family, my country, our values and way of life is of the utmost importance to me.”
Get some, Sean - you make my old jarhead heart of stone go pitter patter! Your country has a place for you. And lest you think Sean is an aberration, it appears the Barrett family is actually doing a pretty good job of raising the unique critter we think of as a "citizen."
Neither of Barrett’s parents is involved with the military. His older brother, a law student at the University of San Diego has committed to serving in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (or JAG) upon his graduation. Barrett’s younger sister, a student at Boston College, is enrolled with the Army ROTC program there.
That's good shit. Anyone who signs on that dotted line ever - that's a pretty big thing to do. Anybody who's signed on that dotted line for the first time since Sept. 11, or re-signed since then...
If you don't know our men and women in uniform, you can think they're victims. You can think they're stupid, or unemplyable. Or foolish. Or gullible. And some of them may be any or all of those things.
But every single one of them signs on that dotted line knowing full well what they're doing. Oh, Aunt Martha, they might even lie to you about it. They might tell you they're doing it for the college money. Because that's what you want to hear.
But they're all doing it to serve their country. They're doing it to find brotherhood, and to test themselves in the oldest, toughest crucibles that remain in our culture of ease. They might not sit down with you at Thanksgiving dinner and say, "This is my generation's greatest test, and I'm not going to sit at home in comfort and safety while it's going on, because I don't think I can live with that." But that's what's going on.
Sean Barrett is a good young man. And so are the thousands of other young men and women who sign on that dotted line every year. Beyond good. So far beyond good that they might not know for years the importance that their signature, their committment, their offering, has to their country.
The sense of duty is an intensely personal thing. I suppose someone out there of a suitable age can watch the news and see their peers in harm's way and not feel like a freeloading shit. Soldiers I worked with couldn't, so they volunteered to come out of the IRR. Or to do a second tour. I know soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen in reasonably safe posts who feel so uncomfortable having their comrades under the gun that they volunteer to go forward. Some beg. It's their duty. It's where they're meant to be.
A sense of duty is complicated, and it's hard for some people to understand. Fortunately, many folks do feel it. And they're the ones who sign up every year.
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