Military Vets Explain Patriotism, Value of Service, in Veterans Day Commemoration

For Veterans Day, Headmaster Temba Maqubela brought a message of service and patriotism—never to be confused with nationalism—directly to the Groton School community from four recent military veterans.

In honor of all those who serve our country, including many whose names are carved into the stone walls of St. John’s Chapel, the message was a call to service—even, or especially, for an imperfect nation.

 

Groton graduate and trustee Ann Gildroy Fox ’94, Congressman Seth Moulton (whom Mr. Maqubela taught at Phillips Andover), and Lieutenant Colonel Barrett Bradstreet (a St. Mark’s alumnus still on active duty) served together as Marines in Iraq under General David Petraeus. They sent the headmaster Veterans Day reflections to share during morning chapel, as did Christopher Joel, a former colleague of the headmaster’s who served in Desert Storm in 1990.

 

“Veterans Day is a time where we celebrate those who have put service above self, our patriots. But what does it mean to be a patriot?” asked Ms. Fox in her missive to the community. “Some define patriotism as a devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people . . . Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.”

 

Ms. Fox explained that when she graduated from Groton in 1994, she considered herself a patriot, as she does today. “However, then and now, I have never considered the place I live, America, to be perfect nor have I considered it a place that fully executes on all of the ideals it aspires to be governed by,” she wrote. “In the pledge of allegiance, we talk about a land that promotes liberty and justice for all, and I find that easy to be devoted to. And yet I can still recognize and cite that it is an imperfect execution, a continual process of evolution in this land that I love.”

 

Her mission in Iraq “wasn’t to force my way of life on others,” she explained. “In fact, I felt my mission in Iraq was to help liberate people from oppression. In many cases we were unsuccessful with this effort, but in others we did in fact succeed.”

 

One success she described was election day in an area in central Southern Iraq, in 2005. “I had never before experienced the sensation of a population or a group of people being liberated,” she wrote, stressing that what she felt “was not pride of forcing our way of life on others; rather, it was pride in allowing them to take a stab at charting their future steps.”

 

Mr. Maqubela also read an impassioned tribute from Congressman Moulton, who acknowledged that some find it difficult to serve our nation at this moment—but that the nation’s problems make service even more critical. “We live in a terribly divided country at a time when our national security is under attack both from outside the country and within…” he wrote. “There’s also never been a more important time in my life to serve our country.”

He stressed that his oath is to the U.S. Constitution—"an oath to American values—and said he tells young people who are reluctant to serve, “This is when your service matters most.”

 

Also serving with Ms. Fox and Mr. Moulton in Iraq was Mr. Bradstreet, who shared this reflection: “Maybe it was after serving for ten years that I also felt a sense of ownership in the big organization of the Marine Corps. Like a school or a team that changes a little bit every year but also endures through the years, I have come to feel an obligation to do good work not only for the people beside me but also for the abstract thing that is the Marine Corps and the United States of America.”

 

He urged students to consider military service. “Real life—a real life serving others—will be different than you think, and that’s exactly the point,” he wrote.

 

Mr. Maqubela also shared the words of Mr. Joel, who said he would serve again “without hesitation. To take the oath, to salute the flag, and to follow in the footsteps of those who’ve served this country since 1775 is an identity that I will always carry with me.”

 

Veterans Day provides opportunity to think about Grotonians who have taken the school motto about service, cui servire est regnare, to heart—and about those who will carry it with them long after Prize Day.

 

“The world has a lot of problems, and someday soon you’re going to realize that they’re not all going to be fixed by somebody else. . .” wrote Congressman Moulton to Groton students.

“What are you going to do?”