The Young and Clueless Who Join The Military.

If you read my post on the controversy surrounding Godsmack and the Navy using their music in their recruitment commercials, then you know that many on the left feel that the military is full of clueless young men who didn't really understand what they were signing up for.

Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't realize that the military will make men out of them. Maybe they don't realize what chance they are being given.

Growing up I had the best father. He was firm, sweet, loving, and kind. Imagine my surprise when I learned as a teenager that he had been a troublemaker, bitter and angry, getting into fights, drinking his life away. But a life changing moment made him decide to join the military at the age of 20.

The military taught him discipline, selflessness, and a sense of accomplishment he could never have found anywhere else. The army was a door to a new life and my father stepped through it and never looked back. He served as a sergeant during the Korean war. He came home, went to college on the G.I. bill and then law school.

He was the best man I ever knew.

I know I'm not objective, but the hundreds of people that showed up at the funeral home when died might be. I stood for hours and listened to one person after another tell how my father had helped them. Stories that made me cry and humbled me. He lived a giving life. He was my inspiration. Standing there at the age of 22, I knew then that my life would have to have meaning and purpose as well. I knew what my father had learned at about the same age, that life is about what you give to people.

You see, the military not only changed my father's life, it changed mine and everyone else that knew him.

Many may go into the military clueless, but they come out stronger, better, knowing that if they died tomorrow, they had already lived a life of purpose.