Dan RatherAUSTIN, Texas - Spring. It's an interesting time in this nation. We find ourselves in the midst of an unusually early-starting presidential election campaign. In the news, 9/11 is a big topic again for some, to be sure, it has never ceased to be so with charges and countercharges in books and in the press, and with the public testimony of top Clinton and Bush administration officials before the independent 9/11 Commission. On the television, images of spring break abound college students blowing off steam and having fun in the country's warm spots, like Florida's Fort Lauderdale and Padre Island here in Texas.
And then there's this item, from a recent front page of the local paper here, the Austin American-Statesman; the headline: "U.S. Marine Killed in Iraq Aimed to Serve '03 Georgetown grad remembered for love of country, football."
First, it should be noted that the "Georgetown" in the headline does not refer to the university in Washington, D.C., but to a high school in Georgetown, Texas. Ricky Morris Jr., the United States Marine of the headline, chose not to attend college, at least not right after graduation. Now any hopes he might have had to do so reside in a flag-draped casket.
FOOTBALL
Twenty-year-old Ricky Morris Jr., as the headline had it, loved football. Ricky was small for the position he played tackle but as his high-school coach put it, "His great desire made up for whatever size deficiency he had." He could have played college ball not at a big school, not as a scholarship star with a shot at the pros, but on the team. Instead, once he received his high-school diploma three months after the start of the Iraq War, he enlisted in the Marines.
No doubt Ricky Morris Jr. knew the risks, but he wanted to serve regardless. He joined the military as a matter of free choice and with his parents' backing. And though his fate, and the hard, dangerous work being done by other young men and women like him in Iraq and elsewhere, should not reflect badly or unfairly on those college students we now see vacationing in spring-break locales, it does provide a study in contrasts.
The fact is, no one has asked any more of America's youth - or of any of us not in uniform, for that matter - than this. We are told that Iraq is a vital part of the war on terrorism, and that this is a war for the very survival of our nation and for our way of life. We search for what our government did wrong in the months and years before 9/11, and look for ways to prevent such an attack from happening again. But here in the United States - in the "homeland" - far away from Iraq's deadly roadsides and Afghanistan's treacherous mountains, the word has gone out: No sacrifice is required. We can still have all we want, and more of it.
Ricky Morris Jr. apparently needed no call to serve his country. But his actions have been proven to be the exception. Would more Americans of all ages be engaged in some sort of national service if, after 9/11, they had been asked? We'll never know.
There's a strange and perhaps disturbing passivity afoot in America, as we watch history unfold from a distance. But this spring break brings reminders that the few are being asked to give all for the many. Something to think about, amid the visions of peace and prosperity so abundant on our nation's airwaves.
Dan Rather is a television news anchor (c) 2004 DJR Inc. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
