Our Service Makes Good of More than Their Sacrifice
by Christopher Holshek
The COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity to rethink how we can relate to each other beyond Zoom meetings and social media memes. One of the more encouraging things to see is our expanding understanding of service and sacrifice beyond the armed forces.
Especially since 9/11, the military has been the most respected institution in our society. “Thank you for your service” is verbal recognition of our military as the ultimate public servants. That wasn’t always true. Such reverence has been more exceptional in our history. Prior to World War II, our armed forces were kept small in peacetime. So the military’s presence in our social and political consciousness was relatively minor.
Then came the divisiveness of Vietnam, from which we gained a more mature appreciation of the difference between those who make policy and those who execute its last few miles. Half a century later, many Vietnam veterans are finally being properly welcomed home, as I saw myself during a recent Hudson Valley Honor Flight mission.
In a similar sign of growth and reconciliation, we are seeing the many ways people serve society other than in its defense. We now recognize the value of the service and sacrifice of many others — first with police, fire, and other first responders. As the pandemic set in, our gratitude swung toward health and medical professionals, public educators, and even “essential” workers such as in the postal, food handling, and delivery services.
“As a nation, the United States has not unlocked the full, transformational potential of service in all its forms,” the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service wrote in its report. “We believe that the current moment requires a collective effort to build upon America’s spirit of service to cultivate a widespread culture of service — a culture in which individuals of all backgrounds both expect and aspire to serve their nation or community and have meaningful opportunities to serve throughout their lifetime.”
That “collective effort” is already under way, with or without Washington. About 90 percent of service in America is in its communities, with tens of millions of volunteers in thousands of organizations. And like charity, real service begins on the block. Our long-standing penchant for moving things forward from the bottom up has made the United States the country it is and promises to be more of — if we seize the opportunity right in front of us.
Volunteerism is how Americans reconcile the ongoing tension between individual and collective identities, tempering our narcissistic tendencies and sense of entitlement. It keeps the unum among the pluribus. People who connect in service to each other discover that, while they may not agree on all the issues, they have more in common than first thought.
Shared values also come from shared cost. Service requires sacrifice, which gives service its value. It’s why we have Memorial Day.
If Americans truly wish to honor veterans and others who have paid the ultimate price in the hope of a more free and just society, then they should strive to make their struggle and this country worth their sacrifice.
Not all service requires a uniform; it begins with simple acts of kindness. Nor does it require a change of address. As we tell schoolkids at service-learning presentations and volunteer fairs with the Orange County Youth Bureau, neither does service require a good grade point average. It only requires the courage to do the right thing and the humility to see that, if service is beneath us, then leadership is beyond us.
In a democratic society, when you serve your community, you serve your country.
As the pandemic showed, one way or another, we’re all in this together. Once again, we must answer the call to meet existential challenges, from our latest struggle with autocratic powers like China and Russia to climate change. By revitalizing our democracy through a universally inclusive narrative of service, we have an opportunity to fulfill the promise of America by becoming better citizens that make a better country.
Our service to others, large and small, helps make more than the good of the sacrifices of those we remember this weekend. The service of the next generation, in turn, keeps the legacy and the promise of America alive, from community to community. It’s how we pass the generational baton of leadership to make and keep American great.
Each of us can set that example, without waiting for political leadership. Citizenship, after all, is more than residence, in the same way that patriotism is more than something you feel or put on a bumper sticker — it’s something you do, for others as well as yourself, as the flags on the graves of those veterans should be reminding us.
The best way to stand up for all the fallen is to be citizens as responsible to neighbors as to nation, because they are one and the same. Only united can we stand the tests of our times.
The author, a retired U.S. Army Civil Affairs colonel, is a member of the American Legion, Executive Director and Founder of the National Service Ride Project, and author of Travels with Harley — Journeys in Search of Personal and National Identity.
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