Sunday, August 10, 2008

Promotion Ceremony

After we got our sergeant stripes, the two of us who got promoted read the NCO Creed passing a framed copy back and forth. I had never read it out loud before. Last drill I read the Declaration of Independence before morning formation. It's not very long and it makes clear how strange the whole idea of starting this country was. It also make clear how much compromise there was. America should have been the first country to free the slaves, not be the last western country to free the slaves, then add to the shame with a century of Jim Crow laws. Despite all the problems--like the British Army--America became a country that never had a monarch and always had peaceful transitions from one government to the next. No country bigger than Switzerland can say that.

George Packer at the Hannah Arendt Forum: Rediscovering Solidarity in an Age of Division

George Packer At the 2026 Hannah Arendt Forum at Bard College, journalist and author George Packer presented a personal and provocative exa...