Academy Graduations

This is the week of the service academies graduations. I was there years ago to see the pomp and celebration of four years of accomplishment for the young men and women at West Point.

I have lectured at the Air Force Academy and was impressed with the collective as well as the individual dedication of the cadets and instructors.

All of the service academies graduations this week engender a spectacular ceremony that wells with emotion and precipitates a deep patriotic pride and a foreboding bellicose prognostication.

Pride because these new spirits of the American dream have spent hard physical and mental hours over that last four years to honor their dream of an education and of service and commitment to the everlasting ideals of America.

The bellicose possibilities exist because many of these men and women  will be heading into hams way.

Many of the men and women in all the ranks that we designate as warriors and send to battle have families and all the needs that go with that responsibility.

Many of them cannot afford to care for their families on what pay they take home even with allowances that vary depending on rank, duty, and dependents.

It is not uncommon for young military families, in all the services, to need food stamps to exist. We ask them for sacrifice, not only of their lives if need be, but the sacrifice of extended time away from family and the closeness at seasonal and personal celebrations, yet we seem to forget them at budget time. Let’s change it.