What's "worth" got to do with it?

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Having moved onto completed status, Downey and I counted on having a light and carefree last year in AFROTC. I still want to be active, don't get me wrong, but please understand my ambivalence when command saw fit to designate us the "tip of the spear" in an aggressive Stanford recruiting campaign. What? I thought the Air Force had too many officers--enough to ask us to cross-comm to the Green Machine (which I considered because they have better helos, but decided that I might want to go Mach 2 instead).

Bless me and this great nation, the powers-that-be do value intelligence after all.

But there goes our light and carefree last year, and I'll tell you why. I don't want to just go through the motions of recruiting; I actually want to bring in bright cadets. I've trained with them and I've trained them, and I know we need bright cadets. Hell, I love the Air Force and the opportunities that it has given me so much, that I'd be happy to share it with others.

But will anyone at Stanford listen?

A year ago, a WWII-era video of handsome Army uniform-clad young men carousing with classy (as in more Vivian Leigh and less Pamela) babes on the steps of Green Library plucked a chord in me that's simply not strung inside most of my peers. "This war is wrong." Excuse me, I signed up before we invaded Iraq, and I'm absolutely sure that I didn't see you in line. "Boys and girls are not dying for a worthy cause." Excuse me again, but worth is only a mirage conjured by the politically inclined. Did anyone who went through D-Day believe that it was worth it?

Maybe if the media was as penetrating, the public as educated and life as complacent as now, America would've never entered WWII. KMT would've lost China to the Japanese, and I'd be saying konichiwa when I see you instead of wazzup. It wasn't always like this. Young men used to enlist, train and die by the hundreds of thousands for a "worthy cause" they did not comprehend. Scroll down to today: rich frat boys drunkenly scoping out another piece of ass while their less-than-fortunate high school classmates warily search for IEDs with their hearts in their throats. Oh no, Mr. Herbert, it's not just the loudest and richest hawks who aren't sending their Abercrombie & Fitch kids off to fight, but the richest finger-pointing bleeding-hearts, too.

"But why should they fight in a war that they don't believe is right or worth it?" Bingo. Herein lies the dilemma to which we as a society cannot supply a practical answer. Serving in the military used to be a badge of honor for all classes; now it's a priesthood entered by the choiceless. The military is stretched to a point of transparency, but it's political suicide to ask all echelons of America to sign up. That's what happens when you have an all-volunteer force. That's what happens when the citizenry has the means and a choice. That's how great empires die.

So what will I tell Stanfordians who might even have the remotest inkling to approach my booth? That I believe in the duty, honor and glory of serving, despite the questionable worth? No. I'll tell them that it's actually a great career move, full of leadership, upwardly mobile, and life-changing opportunities. Either way, I'd be honest, but the latter is what they want to hear. After all, my job is to bring them in, not to preach.

Sad, isn't it? When those who sounded the loudest war cries refuse to offer up the required blood sacrifice. When a predominantly liberal student body cannot live up to the admonishment of one of the greatest liberal presidents of this nation. That, my fellow Americans, is how great empires die.