Monday Recruits are here.

I walk into the building at 6:15 a.m. and there they are. Lined up in the hallway. They are young, male and female. Some have a vacant look in their eyes, some look scared, some arrogant. I pass by them and wonder how many will be here next year. Some are my son’s age and I wonder how many have mothers at home who are crying their eyes out, knowing they precious child will be in danger soon. You give them life and it is theirs to live. After a point you have no control of their actions. All you can do is pray and hope they they will follow a safe path. It is a very sad way to start the day, seeing these young people, the only true assets we have as Americans, going away to face the unknown, the awful truth of war.

I do understand their need to volunteer. I volunteered to support the Katrina relief effort. I put in long days in miserable conditions to help my fellow Americans. But I wonder, if these children were directed in another way, would they be here, volunteering to put their life on the line for people who probably couldn’t care less about democracy, for a people who are apathetic about fighting their own war? Would these people be willing to come to our aid?

I can honestly say I am proud that my son, perhaps from the direction I sent him, did not elect to perform military service. He is my only child and I truly don’t think I could survive the uncertainty involved in military service during war-time. I’m sure some would say that these thoughts are selfish.

As a child during the Vietnam era, I remember with a crystal clarity sitting at the dinner table, when families used to do that, and watching the CBS News with Walter Chronkite. “This is Dan Rather reporting from Vietnam (or Cambodia)”. He would be giving the daily body count, presenting video of young people almost my age in fire-fights with phantom assailants, soldiers screaming in agony after being shot or having their limbs ripped away by shrapnel. These images were burned in my brain. Every night. Like it was our patriotic duty to watch the carnage, to be a witness to it.

Several years later, as an employee of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I had the chance to attend a class in Washington, D.C. While there, I went to the Vietnam Memorial. I saw family members sobbing at the sight of the name of their dead loved one. I wondered, did this mother or father have a say in their child’s action? Did they approve of their son going to a foreign land to participate in a war? Were they proud of their child, all dressed up in his Class-A uniform? Surely they couldn’t be so naïve to believe all the bullets would miss their special child? That he could possibly not return in one piece. Not my child, he would never be in a wheelchair, or missing a eye, or brain damaged.

I’m sure all of this makes no sense to most people, but I just think of all this when I see those young people all lined up, so early in the morning, eager to get away, to have a new adventure. It really hurts me to see it.