I was raised with those principals and values and ethics that came out of the men and women that served. But this generation doesn't quite know; they haven't been tested.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The valor and courage of our young women and men in the armed services are a shining example to all of the world, and we owe them and their families our deepest respect.
I adopted the assumption of many of my generation that women were intellectually inferior to men, that we were not capable of governing, leading, managing anything but our homes and our children.
The male role models I had all seemed to have been in the military. My father served in the army. My uncle was in the Marine Corps. Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. There weren't any career soldiers in my family, but when I was young it seemed like a way of arriving at adulthood.
All of my high school male teachers were WWII and/or Korean War veterans. They taught my brothers and me the value of service to our country and reinforced what our dad had shown us about the meaning of service.
I watched my parents in their leadership callings in the Church and the community. We just grew up knowing that we should serve and do whatever we could do to make things grow.
Over the past two decades, we have clearly seen an erosion of ethical values.
I have always served the public to the best of my ability. Why? Because, like every other man, it is to my interest to do so.
It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
The young people I work with every day and serve the nation in the armed forces in general, and the Marine Corps in particular, have broken the mold and stepped out as men and women of character who are making their own way in life while protecting ours.