this, TOO, is sparta

This past week, while visiting a university for a speaking gig, I sat next to a military mom at a celebratory dinner. The mom, who works at the university and has for years, spoke with pride about her son and his service, and the idealism that led him to joining up in the first place. One of her favorite stories of his childhood, she said, was when someone in the grocery store asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.

“A hero!” he’d said. He was five at the time. The perfect response.

The military mom’s eyes shined with tears as she told us this. The war — the Iraq War — had taken her son some years after this tender memory. It wasn’t a firefight that killed him, though, or a roadside bomb, or a freak helicopter crash. He’d made it... Read More