Question of the Month: What if Your Child Wanted to Go Into the Military?

What would you say if your child or grandchild wanted to go into the military?

It would be their choice, as they have their own journey. As poet Khalil Gibran notes, I cannot visit that journey in my wildest dreams. Even so I would recommend that they become peacemakers and not warriors! My response would be to have them consider the idea of converting military to an army of peacemakers.

Sure, when under assault, it is important to defend yourself … but you must never be the aggressor. Rather seek ways to resolve the conflict in a nonviolent and peaceful manner. We have amazing training for our military – I believe our military is probably trained to act with compassionate acts as I have seen some of our soldiers do that on the news. But the training should emphasize nonviolent and peaceful approaches unless they are under attack! If we do that, eventually we will have less attacks and create soldiers who are implementing nonviolent strategies and becoming better peacemakers.

Also I believe they will return happier with lower cases of PTSD and substantially reduce the large number (22) of daily suicide among our veterans. Furthermore I think this is a more humane and sane approach and one that will get us to peace sooner!