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• Tuesday, April 22, 2008 06:24 PM

  @Omooex

  Thanks for sharing your difficult situation with your son. For what it's worth, my wife and I are in a similar situation: a brilliant young man from another country we worked in, whom we've sponsored for graduate study in the US and whom we care very deeply for, can't get it through his thick head that there are more important things for him to do than join the US military. Naturally, he also doesn't want to do anything that would actually put his advanced education to work, he insists on going combat arms. It isn't the same, I know, because he isn't my son ... but he's the closest thing I have to it.

  So, I think I have a sense, at least, of where you're coming from.

  Obviously, we come from different places on this, because while I respect the view of people who see no value in military service, just as I respect the views of those who are pacifists, and would prefer that more, even most people held these views (as opposed to rolling over slavering and turning bloodthirsty at the provocation of the government, for instance), I don't personally hold them ... I can't deny my own experience of the sources of all the things I value, any more than you can. All I can do is try to see value and legitimacy on the other side of that line. I hope that you can see that this does not entail glorifying the military, or (what is a very different thing), endorsing US military policy.

  And, I can keep your son in mind and hope and pray that he comes home safe and intact. Which I will.

  —quickstrategy Read quickstrategy's other letters
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