Monday, April 7, 2008
The seven core Army values were being barked out by my brother and his fellow graduates. I hardly listened to them but one caught my attention: selfless-service.
I was expecting the graduation ceremony to have an apparent “support your country” atmosphere, but I could sense it was an effective and personal experience for the graduates and the attendees. The graduates believe in these seven values that their officers drilled into them the past 10 weeks, but I started to have my doubts concerning the selfless-service value as the ceremony proceeded.
Three reasons why young people join the Army cycled through my head as I talked with my brother about his experience: aimlessness, benefits and patriotism.
My brother enlisted because he did not know what direction to take in his life. He dropped out of college, worked odd jobs for about a year and, on a whim, drove to the recruiting office in Kansas City and signed up. He saw no way out of his drifting state and the Army was his light at the end of the tunnel.
But many other options were present in his life that could have influenced him in another direction. Re-enrolling in school, learning a trade or moving to a more productive environment (i.e. out of Dad’s house) could have pointed him in the right path. He saw it as the Army’s job to discipline him and set him on the straight and narrow. It must have been those “Strength for now, strength for later” ads that got him.
A reason for joining that my brother seldom brought up was the benefits the Army offered, with tuition reimbursement having the most effect on young people.
Four Senators are pushing a revised GI Bill that would make getting educated (or re-educated) even easier and more beneficial for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have served two years of post-9/11 active duty. It would include veterans receiving payments covering charges of their program and a monthly stipend of $1,000 for housing and books. It would also increase the time veterans have to use these benefits to 15 years from 10 years.
Education benefits should not be the primary reason to enlist. College is expensive, but scholarships, grants and jobs have helped lighten this burden that students’ suffer. I could not fathom taking any amount of years of personal freedom just to avoid debt.
My brother did not address seeing the Army as a duty to his country before enlisting. After attending his graduation, though, I could tell this reasoning was thoroughly instilled in his mind.
This reason is brought up most frequently when outsiders discuss why young people join the service, but I doubt this is at the top of the recruits’ reasons for enlisting. Protecting one’s country is the most selfless reason I can think of and should be No. 1 on every enlistee’s list.
In all reality, though, with the Iraq war and the rising cost of, well, everything, I can’t blame them for not considering the protection of the U.S. as their primary reason. The American culture lives for the idea of individualism, so using the Army to alleviate aimlessness or receive benefits is pretty aligned with the culture most of the recruits were raised in.
My brother was the same person after boot camp. Just a more matured, refined version of the guy I’ve known for 20 years. His 10-week “version of hell,” as he called it, gave him direction and he’s a more focused individual. The Army gave him a career path, and he’s finally taking a hold of his life.
That’s reason enough for me to put my patriotic reservations aside and give my brother a reassuring pat on the back.
Hirschfeld is a Augusta junior in journalism.
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