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A Veterans Day plea: Call on all Americans to serve Be our guest Every generation has its defining moments. My grandfather was leaving a New York Giants football game at the Polo Grounds when he heard that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. He enlisted in the Army that week. Sixty years later, I was on my way to vote when I saw the World Trade Center burning. A few days later, I was standing with my then-boss, Sen. Hillary Clinton, just a short distance from President Bush when he hopped on that famous fire truck and grabbed a bullhorn. That was the day I looked up at the empty space where the towers once stood - just a few blocks from where I went to high school - and, like 217,000 other Americans in the year following Sept. 11, decided to join the military. America has a long and proud tradition of this: We, the people, share the burden of protecting the nation. During World War II, men flooded military recruiting offices to do their part. Sixteen million Americans - roughly 12% of the population - served in the Armed Forces then. They came from all walks of life. George H.W. Bush and John F. Kennedy, both sons of privilege, served. And here on the home front, families tightened their belts and women worked in factories. Flash forward. Although the Iraq war has now stretched longer than World War II, the active-duty military has never risen above 1.4 million - roughly 1/2% of the population. And here's a big part of the reason why: Even as the Army struggles to make its monthly enlistment quotas and the nation spends billions of dollars on recruitment and retention to maintain the current inadequate force level, our commander in chief has still never called the nation to service. There has never been an Oval Office speech or fireside chat asking this generation to do its part. Instead of asking us to tighten our belts, the President cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and told us that to be patriotic, we should go shopping. No, in this global war on terror, the burden is falling over and over again on the military and on military families. Members of the Army and Marine Corps are returning to Iraq for a third and even fourth time - with tours of duty now extended from 12 to 15 months. Active-duty soldiers and Marines are being "stop-lossed" and kept beyond their contracts - a backdoor draft of people who have already completed their obligated service. The National Guard, which should be protecting the homeland and our vulnerable ports of entry, is being sent to war, often without proper equipment. More service members than ever before are returning home with missing limbs. As of this Veterans Day 2007, nearly 3,900 members of the U.S. military have made the ultimate sacrifice. There are precious few members of the educated elite among them. The growing cultural divide will have a tremendous impact on public policy for years to come. If our future congressmen, senators and CEOs have no experience with the devastating consequences of war, how will they lead our nation? If our nation's leaders can't name a close friend whose family has been torn apart by a deployment, how can they speak to the needs of veterans and our families? If none of our leaders has children who would even consider serving in the military, what's to stop them from invading a country on shaky intelligence and shifting rationale, yet again? While it may be too late for this President to demonstrate leadership, it is not too late for this generation. We still have time to define ourselves. I am confident that our generation, like that of our grandparents, is willing to answer a call to service and make the sacrifices necessary for the greater good of our nation. We can still become the next Greatest Generation. If only someone had the guts to ask. Kauffmann is a vice president at The Glover Park Group. From 2002 to 2007, he was an officer in the United States Navy. |
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