Chamberlain’s ghost in Salem’s Lot

“And these children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds, are immune to your consultations. They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.”

– DAVID BOWIE

I doubt that when David Bowie released the single “Changes” in 1972 that he’d thought about the military in those lyrics. But the subtle paternalistic elitism suggested by Stephen King’s recent comments at the Library of Congress inferred that the military was the refuge of illiterates. I don’t know the raw numbers of high school graduates in the military, but I do know what I have experienced. In my relatively few assignments at sea or on shore, I have never encountered service members unable to read. Quite the opposite, actually.

Among younger veterans I have encountered an incredibly literate crowd. David Bellavia was a college theater major who started his own company before enlisting in the Army. For his actions in Fallujah, he was recommended for the Medal of Honor and wrote “House to House.” David Danelo, a Marine captain in Iraq, wrote “Blood Stripes” and is now a freelance journalist. Nate Fick, a philosophy major at Dartmouth, became a Marine officer serving in Afghanistan and Iraq before writing the best-seller “One Bullet Away.”

For the past three years, I have had the honor of serving as an instructor at the United States Naval Academy encountering younger men and women who have astounded me with their diverse talents. They are scholars, athletes, musicians, playwrights and poets. They are fluent in multiple languages. They are committed, disciplined, open-minded, creative, humorous and competitive. They come from a variety of backgrounds. While in high school, one of my midshipmen avoided the gangs of East Los Angeles by enlisting and serving in the Navy before coming to the academy. Another one of my students was offered a full scholarship to Yale. She turned it down to enlist and only years later found herself here.

Then there are those graduates of valor who distinguished themselves on the battlefield and became prolific fiction and nonfiction writers, like Virginia Sen. James Webb. Closer to home, Mr. King might have recalled another man of letters, Bowdoin College professor Joshua Chamberlain who volunteered for the Union Army and became one of the heroes of the Civil War.

Most on active duty in the military refrain from public political discussions beyond personal conversations or a classroom environment but they represent a variety of political philosophies from conservative to liberal. One fellow officer, whose hobby was writing haiku, told me of his political affiliation and feelings about the Iraq war. But he knew Arabic and Farsi, among other languages, and recognized that he would be far more effective in-theater than some of the less experienced officers, so he volunteered for Iraq.

And if Mr. King suspects that the military is simply represented by one religion, he would find a likewise incredibly diverse system of beliefs. Service members are Christian, atheistic, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, and, if he happened to watch the recent Public Broadcasting System series “Carrier,” he might also have found a Wiccan coven practicing on a Navy ship.

The military is not the last resort of the unread and the great unwashed; for most it is a first and best hope and mission for the qualified and committed. It is a lifestyle of perpetual training and education that is not only encouraged but often required. It is a meritocracy that stands for something greater than any individual because it serves to support and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Last year, I asked one of my midshipmen, coincidentally another prior enlisted, why he came to the academy. His answer: “I’m preparing myself for the nation.” Service members experience reality, not the land of make-believe.

Finally, I am reminded on a more personal level of a young literate man from Maine who read English and French then served in the U.S. Army during the World War II. Returning to Lewiston-Auburn, Gerry Berube had a successful life; his wife, Georgette, ran her family’s business for decades before becoming Maine’s longest serving female legislator – as a Democrat. Neither of my parents graduated from college, but they were two of the best-read and most objective people I’ve known. And if they were ever frustrated by civilian policies, they knew better than to demean service members.

Mr. King has the right to speak out against any policy, any war. But he failed to provide fact-driven objectivity and diminished his case by belittling military personnel. In the process, he gave the impression that his fiction isn’t restricted to what comes out of his pen.

Claude Berube, a Lewiston native and Navy lieutenant, volunteered to serve with Expeditionary Strike Group Five (2004-05) during its deployment to the Persian Gulf. The views expressed are his alone and not those of the Department of the Defense, Navy or Naval Academy.