nightmare for US, those 12 years of intense US involvement had a positive effect on many people around the world.

A Father-Son story about love and the US Marine Corps.

Over the years, there are a few politicians' offsprings in the Military.  Some of them wanted to follow their fathers' footsteps.  Others wanted to polish their resume for future run of public office.  Case in point - Albert Gore, Jr.

Harry S. Truman
Dwight David Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Teddy Roosevelt
Ronald Reagan
George Bush Sr.
And quite a few others!

There was a program aired on 60 Minutes (I think) not too long ago that dealt with the son of a millionaire from one of the NorthEastern states.  The father was one who apparently was anti-war & anti-military under almost any circumstance.  His son could easily have gone to an Ivy League school & graduated with a degree which likely would have earned him millions of dollars as well.  

But the son felt a different calling & chose instead to enlist, ultimately ending up in the current conflict in Iraq.  Both prior to the outbreak of hostilities there & during them, the father apparently got to know for the first time in his life what his son was all about.  No, it definitely wasn't the path his father would have chosen for him, but he gained true respect for his son for the first time in his life.  The father then became very involved in numerous activities in support of our troops & our military.  The message I got from watching this program was that for likely the first time in his life, the father came to appreciate there are sacrifices more noble than the pursuit of the allmighty dollar.

But there are many other examples as well.  While not dealing with a child, but the person himself, there are few example that stand out in my mind more than the baseball hall-of famer Ted Williams.  This man enlisted in the USMC during WWII, & he didn't raise war bonds...he was a combat fighter pilot in the Pacific.  And if that wasn't enough, he did the same thing during the Korean War, serving again as a combat pilot.  

Perhaps it's not often that those of 'privilige' do this, but if one cares enough to really search for the information it's not as rare as some might think.

60s and 70s.  They only changed things marginally.  Unfortunately, too many people want power in the worst ways, including enslaving their fellow countrymen.

Légion Étrangère

Some guys buy in for life. Used to mean a lot more than it does now. Civilized world ytou know. Peace Corp.... a good Bolshi movement, that...

Perhaps it is called something different now, but that was the given name for doing community/national service in the late 60's. It was a program that was started by Johnson or Kennedy that was supposed to do domestically what the Peace Corps. was doing on a international level. Back then, we principally worked for a year on Indian reservations in New Mexico or migrant camps in California. Basically, it was just a collaborative effort among a group of affluent, well-intentioned, college kids who after four years of doing nothing much more than sex, drugs and rock n roll (with some studying thrown in) wanting to constructively contribute to our society. I credit that experience as being a key element of the foundation that allowed me to be so successful later in life.