A couple of years ago, one of my sons decided to send Christmas presents to U.S Marines stationed in Afghanistan, as his

Boy Scout Eagle Project.  We gathered donations and goods and packed boxes for over 300 soldiers.  Women at our church gathered one night and helped assemble the boxes and write letters of thanks.  Just labeling the giant boxes with troop numbers and AFGHANISTAN was an eye-opening and endearing experience.

During World War I and World War II, the Korean Conflict, and Viet Nam, every family in America was invested in America.  The Draft, for all its sacrifices, unified our country because American families were “all in.”   Today, less than 200,000 families are committed in that same way to the U.S. military, and they are sacrificing for over 300 MILLION of us who live in America.  This is a costly imbalance.

A new generation of Americans, maybe even two, have learned that there is virtually no sacrifice involved in being an American.

Our youth feel no urgency to make a path.  To complete college.  To choose and enter a career.

Oddly enough,  the prospect of a Draft actually focused our young men on their lives.  Time had…..value.

This past week, several dozen American men and their families gave their lives for us and for the people of Afghanistan.

This was the price of love for their country.

As we wade through our days, yelling at the television set, re-ordering our 401-k’s so that we don’t take big losses, as we complain about our schools, our politicians, our lack of city services, perhaps we should pause and consider a transformation of our citizenship.

Launch a new era when Americans re-unite and realize that nothing can change in our country, until ALL of us feel the same way about the nation as those who are willing to sacrifice everything….for it.

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Filed under: Featured, Inside The KC, Sonja Eddings Brown by Sonja Eddings Brown, Aug 9, 2011