Closing Comments for Veteran's Day, November 11, 1996
I want to close this ceremony by talking to you for a few
minutes about answering "the call." Of course, if you were drafted,
the call was more like, "Hey you, get over here!" But for me, it
started with Vietnam, even though I was too young for the draft. Something I
never thought about until my brother mentioned it years later was that, while
we were growing up, you couldn't go through a day without hearing
"Vietnam" twenty to 100 times. So, I always figured I would grow up
and go there.
Fortunately, the U.S. got out just before I got old enough.
But the call didn't go away, just got submerged by school and, later, job
hunting. Then after I taught high school for two years, I was laid off. The
school district's building was in the downtown area and after I got the news, I
sat on an outside bench for awhile thinking, "What am I gonna do
now?" The same instant I thought that, I remembered the Air Force
recruiting office around the corner from the school's headquarters. I figured,
here I am in my mid- twenties. If ignore the call much longer, I'll be too old
to ever find out what the military is like.
So I visited the recruiter that same day, and several reams
of paperwork later, I was headed for Officer Training School for three months
of more fun than I could stand.
I'm being sarcastic, of course, but I do believe serving in
the military is valuable for the individual and for the United States. Many
countries require conscription even in peacetime, and while this goes against
Americans' love for personal freedom, I think it might
be a good idea if the U.S. did, too. Military service teaches you a lot of
skills that are useful for the rest of your life, like learning
not only to get along with people from all over, but figuring out with them how
to work as a team and learning how to live
by the rules.
There
are more important lessons that stick with you, too, like the right way to fold
your underwear and how to take orders from people who are way stupider than you
are.
My flight commander at OTS asked us how many of us felt
called to serve, and it surprised me to learn I was the only one who understood
his question. It's not so much like a vocation, but simply doing it because
it's the right thing to do. I felt the call again when the EEO Council asked me
to deliver closing comments, so how could I ignore it?
Thanks for attending and enjoy the rest of your Veteran's
Day.
romanczuk@earthlink.net