Service Guarantees Citizenship

Georgie Anne Geyer reveals why Chris Hedges got booed off the stage at the Rockford College commencement: Kids today never had it tough.

But I'd also say that Chris Hedges was "there"—out there in the war zones when precious few Americans were—and that he was trying to explain it all to his paper, to his country and, above all, to himself. Not only had none of those students been there, in terms of wars, but few of them will ever try to be there. Few of them will enlist. For most of them, the bill for their easy patriotism will never come due.

It is not their fault that their country chose to have a volunteer army after the traumas of Vietnam or that Iraq is a long way away, both physically and spiritually. Still, I worry that such apparently costless patriotism also comes with its own peculiar measure of guilt and blame, not to speak of a strange new patriotism untethered to responsibility or sacrifice—except, of course, for all those others.