Public Service Requires Sacrifice
My family has a long history of public service. Several family members, including my dad, served in the U.S Army during World War II and the Korean War. One cousin suffered PTSD from fighting at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in Korea. Our family knew that public service requires sacrifice.
While my parents were stationed at Ft. Belvoir, I was born at DeWitt Army Hospital. My dad said that since I was born while he was in service to his country that I would always be in service to the country. Imagine hearing that since childhood!
Public service requires sacrifice is another lesson I learned at an early age. After his Army service, my dad joined the Army National Guard in the small Alabama town where we lived. It was September 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis was one month away. Dad’s Guard unit was on alert. Fortunately, the crisis between Washington and Moscow was short-lived. It was a tense time for my family.
In the early 1960s, Alabama was Ground Zero for the Civil Rights struggle. My dad’s Guard Unit was called into service at the University of Alabama. In June 1963, Governor George C. Wallace pledged to stop the racial integration of his alma mater. President Kennedy federalized Dad’s Guard Unit to assure the peaceful registration of African Americans students. It was another time that I realized public service required sacrifice. It required my dad to be away from the family during tense times. It made me realize that service was important. Duty to the country was worth the sacrifice.
In 1965, my dad’s Guard Unit was federalized for the third Selma to Montgomery March led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Alabama’s vicious KKK was expected to commit violence along the 50-mile march.
When President Johnson told Wallace to protect the marchers, the governor said he lacked authority to order law enforcement officers to police the peaceful march. Alabama’s National Guard served for the march. The absence of my father for five days was another example that public service required sacrifice.
The assassinations of President Kennedy, in 1963, and Dr. King, in 1968, were other examples that public service required sacrifice. The large death toll of Americans in Vietnam was another example. My cousins in who served in Vietnam all returned home. Their stories about fighting in the jungle were a testament to their sacrifices for their country.
While at Auburn University, I became interested in government service. I especially admired President Gerald R. Ford who became president not at the start of a New Year, but in the heat of August. When President Nixon resigned due to Watergate crimes, Vice President Ford became the 38th President of the United States. President Ford’s leadership in difficulty national and international crises, reminded me that public service required sacrifices.
In 1976, I worked for Ford’s campaign in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida. I went to the GOP National Convention in Kansas City as a member of the Presidentials, a group formed by Jack Ford. I read about the group in a column by Jack Anderson.
At the Convention, I saw President and Mrs. Ford work around the clock to gain the delegates needed to secure the nomination. The entire Ford family made enormous personal sacrifices at the convention. It was the toughest job I ever had. Each day of the convention, I worked until the early hours. I often slept on the bus to our lodging at Ottawa College in Kansas.
After the convention, I worked even harder for President Ford’s victory over Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. On the Sunday before the presidential election, I was invited to attend a Ford campaign rally in Plains, Georgia, Carter’s hometown. Shortly after I arrived in Plains, I joined an old-fashioned Ford campaign hayride through downtown Plains. Our group was quickly escorted out of town by the police.
The outcome of the 1976 presidential election was difficult. It was another time I realized that public service required sacrifices. President Ford enjoyed a long and successful career in public service.
I recently reread Connecticut Senator Joseph I. Lieberman’s 2000 book “In Praise of Public Life,” written with Michael D’Orso. Lieberman, who recently died, wrote passionately about his public service career and his hope for a better future.
“The day is short, as that rabbi said so long ago, and there is much work to be done, tikkum olam, repairing our government and improving our beloved country and world. We are not required to complete the work ourselves, but, as good and grateful citizens, we cannot withdraw from it either,” Lieberman wrote.
Gerald R. Ford’s presidency was short. As Yanek Mieczkowski wrote in “Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s,” Ford did not withdraw from the challenges. He achieved something that few recent presidents have done. He left America in a far better place.
