Divided Americans need a shared experience

I was on Christmas break from college after my four years in the Marine Corps. The company I was working for during that break had a Christmas party. At that party, a guy gave me a dollar and asked me to pick out some music on the jukebox. He said he had never been out of the county and thought I might know some different music.

It feels like people in his same boat who didn’t ask questions like that grew up to be Republicans in the Iowa Legislature. “Iowa House passes bills further dismantling DEI programs.” The Gazette Wed 3-19-25.

Never mind that much of what the proposed laws contain are misunderstandings, misstatements, and misinterpretations of truths and definitions, the problem. The laws could be seen as coming from people who have seldom known anything but a white Iowa and Iowans, and never tried to change that.

There is a solution to this. In 2021 I wrote in The Gazette about the loss of the draft and the problems it has created:

“It has been two generations since the loss of the military draft. Two generations since the loss of two of the last vestiges of shared American experience that the draft included which made America what it is/was. Those lost vestiges are the loss of the melting pot, and the loss of working for your country.

The melting pot of the draft forced us to live and work with others who were unfamiliar to us. We overcame initial misgivings and got things done. The unknown “other” turned into the known and familiar.

Working for your county gives a sense of ownership of the country and that sense of ownership promotes a responsibility toward that which is owned. The country, and the government that runs the country, are mine. I own and am responsible for my country and want my country and government to run correctly for all.”

Although it seems it is mostly men who have this anti-DEI affliction, a required National Service for all young adults would go a long way toward having the unknown “other” turned into the known and familiar. Work for your country, work with the other, and we may end up a fair and equitable society.

I believe that I fought for all the people in the US, whether they are like you or not. We do not have to destroy our state and our country because you are uncomfortable with those that may not be like you. Supposedly, you think God created us all.

Bob Watson lives in Decorah.