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 eco- nomic  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 edu- cated 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." 

    © 2002 The Washington Post Company

    Forwarded by,
    John  H.  Pierson  Jr.
    Major USMC Retired