The Hill News

Not that I've ever been so inclined, but if I ever had the dark drive to run for office, especially president, I would want to do two things: Go to college and do military service. The first is least important, although a Jeffersonian with a natural pride of place might do undergraduate work at her or his state school: U. Tennessee, like my surgeon friend in Tennessee (and his father and grandfather before him), U Mass., Texas A&M, etc. Military service more important, as it has a ritual quality: You go before your rational function is fully developed, so you enter the moral ambiguity of war on a leap of faith: faith in the collective you will enter as a full adult. Common honor, which common people once strived for. But today only Prince Harry, doing combat training in California, sees it as a duty.

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