You wrote and read for us of the initial feeling of something approaching
Shame or embarrassment to what you now clearly feel which is one of enormous pride. Yeah, and and satisfaction
Yeah, why do you think we've come to that?
You know
up until the Vietnam War
This country basically pulled in the same direction and the military was seen as something honorable since the 60s at my generation
split and there's part of that generation that served and some that didn't and some that didn't
Came away either feeling guilty or bitter or still had real ideological
Antipathy toward the military and out of that came a kind of a snobbery
That says that if you're in college
The maid cleaning your room is far like more likely to have a kid who will serve in the military than you are and that's really
A kind of an elitism that I don't think our country wants to talk about that much John does that snobbery work in both directions?
In other words when you ended up in boot camp three and a half years ago
A lot of the kids in there must have looked at you and said where the hell did you come from?
not so much really I
Actually once I got to know them I felt much more in common with those people than I did with anybody
I'm not talking about how you felt about them. I'm asking how they felt about you. Well, actually it was it was interesting
It was especially nice for me in boot camp because you don't really get much of a chance to have
Conversations with anybody for about the first three weeks or so
So by the time anybody actually found out where I was from we were already so close
It didn't really make a difference what what I'd been doing with my life for you know
How much money my parents earned or anything like that?
How do you feel about congressman Wrangle's proposal and again I said at the beginning of this broadcast that nobody really expects it to pass
But how would you feel about a draft? I?
Think that the ideal of national service is an excellent one
however from where I sit when the rubber hits the road and
you're in a combat situation and you get hit by around and you look to your left and your right and you realize that
The two people on either side of you don't want to be there
Are not willing to be doing their job and may not be willing to risk their lives to pick you up and carry you the mile
Or so you need to get to a medic that you're in real trouble and I think that the ideal might in this
In this sense put a lot of people in danger
So from a very practical point of view you'd rather be in an all-volunteer service than to have draftees on either side of you
Absolutely. Frank we're on the verge of what may be a war in Iraq. Things look terrible in North Korea
And I'm very moved and impressed by all the wonderful things you've said but as a father I also know
That if for some reason John were shipped over to the Persian Gulf next month
There have to be different thoughts that run through your head too
Yeah, you know after the op-ed piece came out that I read the little excerpt from I got a lot of letters from a lot of people
some from parents who had lost
People killed in war in fact one parent of a ranger who was killed in Afghanistan in the beginning of our time there and that
chopper rescue effort and
I'll tell you
You know, I read those names very carefully I've cried over some of them because I see his face it's tough and
And I care for ten different. It's really difficult
but I
Love this country
I'm a writer by profession. I have freedom to write what I want and
When somebody doesn't arrest me for writing that opinion it's because there's guys like this
Who are putting their life on the line to defend it?
You know John and his buddies watch your back and my back while we sleep you do this show in freedom
because somebody's out there
putting their back on the
watching your back and we don't think of that enough so
Nothing scares me more and nothing makes me more proud a
last question to you both
The point that congressman Wrangel is making and as I said at the outset, he doesn't expect the bill to pass
but the point that he is making is
If more of men and women in Congress had sons and daughters who were facing the draft
Maybe they wouldn't be quite as eager to get into wars
Maybe they wouldn't vote for them quite as easily as they do
Do you see any advantages to a draft in that sense?
So that it's not just a guy like you who chooses to do it
But that every one of us who has children of that age has to confront the possibility that one of our sons and daughters
May have to go. I would like to think that our leaders would vote with their conscious regardless of
Whether they had any personal stake in it or not
I do think that they would be much more careful about what they vote for
However, as a marine I have the luxury of not making policy. I just have to enforce it and
and
I think I'm gonna stop there. That's all right. Yeah, not not saying anything above your pay grade is usually a smart
I'm very safe. I thank you both. Thank you John. It's been a pleasure talking to you Frank. Thank you so much for joining me
I'll be back in a moment