Washington Post
> > November 26, 2002
> > Pg. 29
> > My Heart On The Line
> > By Frank Schaeffer
> > 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
> coming
> >conflict in Iraq, 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 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 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 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 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, 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." He will answer
> >questions about this article in a Live Online discussion at 1 p.m. today
> at
> >www.washingtonpost.com. |
