Posted on 02/17/2003 8:35:06 PM PST by GeneD
FORT BLISS, Tex. — When Joseph K. Goodwin graduated from Harvard in the spring of 2001, his ideas about where he was going did not include war.
But early in February, Lieutenant Goodwin ascended the stage at the Army's Air Defense Artillery School graduation ceremony here, recognized as one of two distinguished honor graduates in his 120-member class, picked by his commanders as among the best to lead his fellow soldiers in battle.
Standing next to a fleet of armored vehicles used to fire short-range Stinger missiles, which he could soon be called to operate in a conflict with Iraq, Lieutenant Goodwin, 25, was reticent about his accomplishments. "The real test," he said after the ceremony, "is when you get to where you're going."
A history and literature major, Joey, as his parents call him, was headed to Washington after college to work for Robert Shrum, the Democratic political consultant.
Politics is in the young man's blood. His mother is Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential historian. His father, Richard Goodwin, was an adviser and speechwriter for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Lieutenant Goodwin hoped to become a speechwriter, as his father had once done.
Then came the terrorist attacks against the United States. A week after the hijacked airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, the new graduate walked into an Army recruiting office near his family home in Concord, Mass., and announced that he wanted to enlist.
"All of a sudden you realize the country needs people to protect it," he said. "And then you think, who am I to expect someone else to do something that I am young and able-bodied enough to do myself."
With his Ivy League background, Lieutenant Goodwin is unusual in the military these days. Perhaps even more so being the son of well-known liberal parents who strongly opposed the war in Vietnam. But the patriotism that inspired him to enlist after Sept. 11. is typical of young people who signed up then.
"Many of the soldiers we're training now say they came in because they wanted to do something for their country at this time of need," said Col. John C. Hamilton, commander of the Sixth Brigade at Fort Bliss.
And the emotions of his parents — pride and fear — are not that different from other families of enlisted men and women. With the prospect of military action in Iraq, Lieutenant Goodwin and his family are facing the bracing realities of his decision.
If the young officer has doubts about the impending conflict, he would not reveal it. Politics, he made clear, was off limits as a topic of discussion in his new military role. "We're here to execute the political will of our country," he said on the eve of his Feb. 6 graduation.
His parents express themselves in less certain terms. In an interview at their home in Concord, the couple said they supported the Persian Gulf war as well as the military action in Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks in 2001. But, like many Americans, they have reservations about the Bush administration's position on Iraq. "Is it right to go into Iraq?" Mr. Goodwin asked. "I really don't know yet."
Ms. Goodwin added, "There are still questions, things we're trying to understand."
Their worries may be colored by memories of another war. Both Goodwins had differences with President Johnson over the Vietnam War. Mr. Goodwin had been a top White House aide and had helped to shape the political oratory of President Johnson's Great Society. Vietnam severed the relationship. In 1966, after he resigned from the administration, Mr. Goodwin wrote a book that criticized the Johnson war policy, "Triumph or Tragedy: Reflections on Vietnam."
"We opposed that war not because we were pacifists, but because it was a disaster, and it was swallowing up the domestic initiatives of the Great Society, all of the things we had worked for," said Mr. Goodwin, who served two years in the Army in the 1950's.
Ms. Goodwin, too, wrote critically about President Johnson's war policies, before she met her husband. When she began working as an aide to the president in 1967, he often teased her, she said, by calling her "Miss Antiwar" or "pinko."
Since then she has studied how other presidents dealt with war: Roosevelt in World War II, Lincoln in the Civil War. During her son's training, Ms. Goodwin has also been dealing with accusations that a book she wrote on the Kennedys early in her career contained passages that were not properly attributed to another author. That episode, she said, "is happily in the past."
Since he walked into the Army recruiting center, Lieutenant Goodwin has shuttled through basic training in Fort Jackson, S.C., officer candidate school at Fort Benning, Ga., and has just completed officer basic course at Air Defense Artillery School. He is scheduled to return to Fort Benning for Army Ranger School in March.
"At first you're just thinking about completing the drills and getting through it," said Lieutenant Goodwin, a former high school wrestler whose compact build has muscled up from the physical regimen of the past year. "Then after a certain point you start to focus on the fact that you're training for actual combat. That's where I am now. Focused."
Lieutenant Goodwin's decision was not altogether surprising to his parents. "Joey was raised with a great sense of patriotism and America," Ms. Goodwin said. The family home is just down the road from the Old North Bridge, where the "shot heard round the world" touched off the American Revolution.
The family's focus on history also included instilling in the children the importance of informed dissent. Lieutenant Goodwin's older brother Michael, 26, a teacher in Vermont, is adamantly opposed to a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, a stance Lieutenant Goodwin called "as valid and necessary a form of patriotism as what I am doing."
Whatever ambivalence the Goodwins feel about the prospect of a war with Iraq, they have not a shred of doubt, they insisted, about their son's decision to join the military. "The soldiers are doing what they are called to do," Ms. Goodwin said. "You have to separate it. Joey answered a call within himself, and we're so proud of that."
The couple settle their nerves about the fact that their son may soon be called to fight by learning as much as they can about his experience. Their home is scattered with evidence of their efforts — a book chronicling Ranger training school in one room and Army-produced videotapes on basic training in another. Mr. Goodwin keeps a digital photo catalog of his son's progress on his computer.
Lieutenant Goodwin groaned sheepishly when he learned that his parents had been poring over his Army pictures with a reporter.
He admitted, too, that the prospect of war was daunting. "It's only natural, I'm sure, for any soldier to feel scared at times," he said.
Especially when the call to duty can come at any minute. As he finished dinner at a Chili's restaurant just outside the base, a group of soldiers strolled in and crowded around a table. They wore newly issued outfits, the color of sand.
"They've been called for deployment," Lieutenant Goodwin said, soberly. "You can tell by their uniforms." He shot a long, silent glance over at their table, said simply, "Ready," and stood to leave.
.......
With his Ivy League background, Lieutenant Goodwin is unusual in the military these days. Perhaps even more so being the son of well-known liberal parents who strongly opposed the war in Vietnam. But the patriotism that inspired him to enlist after Sept. 11. is typical of young people who signed up then.
Opposed the ware in Vietnam, but wrote speaches for Lydnon Johnson. What hypocrites.
Not really, they broke with Johnson over the war, or maybe just the conduct of the war. Hell, I broke with him over the conduct of the war. Maybe not for the same reasons the Goodwins did though. Johnson was an idiot, a bigger Bubba than Bubba C. Although that notion is an insult to real Bubbas that I've known, including one who retired as a Lt. Col in the USAF, and another who is currently (AFAIK) a Maj. or Lt. Col in the AF Reserve. The latter Bubba has a PhD in Engineering, with a Master's in Meterology and BS in physics, all from Texas Aggie U. His AF job is as a meterologist, usually assigned to an Army unit, but sometimes an AF one.
My real antogonisms are saved for Robert Strange MacNamara, who while an ass, is not an idiotm, and of course the likes of Hanoi Jane.
Better take your own advice,bub.
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