There is a price to be paid for liberty, and other people are paying it for me.
Since the beginning of our nation’s experiment with freedom, patriots have defended this land from tyranny. These brave souls have stood the ground between Americans and our enemies, from the Barbary pirates to al-Qaeda. They risk it all, and some sacrifice everything.
I cannot help but feel indebted. Strangers have put their blood, sweat and tears into the work of defending the liberties that I have taken for granted my entire life. And what have I done for them?
Nothing.
I’ve risked nothing. My home is safe because these people have faced danger. Even if we discount Montezuma and Tripoli because I wasn’t born, I have enjoyed bars in LoDo while soldiers fight in places called al-Anbar and Fallujah.
I’ve sacrificed nothing. I can wake up and enjoy the amenities of modern living because these people have suffered through the worst environments man can create.
I’ve given nothing. The closest I’ve even come to such a meager act is paying my taxes, and I don’t think that should count because paying isn’t voluntary. Besides, if you took what I paid, you probably couldn’t give a dollar to every member of a given battalion, much less everyone on active duty. That’s hardly fair payment for someone willing to die for me.
Even if I had the resources to give a dollar (or any amount of money) to every American soldier, that could not repay what I owe. Debts must be paid in the currency in which they accrue. I do not owe dollars or cents. I owe courage and sacrifice. I owe service.
It makes it worse to know that I could pay this debt. I could walk into a recruiter’s office tomorrow and pay my first installment. I’m an able-bodied young man. Four years still leaves the vast majority of my life ahead of me.
But those who know me well will tell you: Signing up is not for me. I hate not being in control of my destiny. I don’t respond well to barked orders. I don’t even like to shave. Those characteristics might make me a lot of things, but Marine Green isn’t one of them.
Morality, however, is not concerned with what one would enjoy, but with what one ought to do. I can’t imagine any of the men who fought on Iwo Jima enjoyed it. But they paid the price for people like me, and it seems that I ought to pay it back.
Years from now, will I be able to look my children in the eye if I don’t step up to protect their future now? Will I be able to look my younger brother in the eye, knowing that he was willing to stand to defend me, but I didn’t return the favor?
I don’t even know if I could look myself in the eyes if I welch on this debt.
There is nothing more reprehensible than the sinner who knows that he is doing something wrong but does not stop. He is not a product of twisted values, but of cowardice. If I don’t cowboy up, if I don’t stand the line, I will be one of those people.
Even knowing this, I’m not ready to give up the creature comforts of home. I’m not ready to surrender my autonomy for some higher purpose or another. Even knowing that better men than me have paid a much higher price than I might pay, I’m not ready.
When I remember that I’m not paying for the liberties I’ve been given, I feel like the worst kind of freeloader.
Perhaps an aching conscience is the price I pay for liberty, but that will never cover the tab.
