Jim Webb: 'Our country is in the middle of a profound crisis'

Our country is in the middle of a profound crisis. This crisis has many causes, but much of it has been brought about by poor leadership decisions at every level of government. In addition, our electoral process is dominated by financial interests that are threatened by the very notion of reform. Elections shouldn’t be media circuses, nor should they be auctions where a candidate sells himself to the highest bidder. They should be moral contracts between those who wish to lead and those who are consenting to be led.

What It Means To Be a Leader

By Senator Jim Webb
Parade, May 18, 2008, Adapted from “A Time to Fight” © Jim Webb (Broadway Books, 2008).

On June 5, 1968, I had the honor of taking the oath of office as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. Thus my professional career began with a vow to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, at a time when the country was riven by external and internal conflict.

Our instructors at the Marine Officers Basic School were handpicked from among the finest young officers in the Corps. Almost all had been in combat, and many bore visible scars. As the months at school went by, they repeatedly and unendingly challenged us with an age-old mantra: What do you do now, lieutenant?

Just before we graduated, a tough but insightful lieutenant colonel who had fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam gave us a speech, a warning that echoes in my memory almost every day. He recounted a story of a fight in Korea that went incredibly bad—where, for all his experience, he made an error in judgment.

“I had the enemy pinned down on a ridge,” he said. “I set up a base of fire and sent 13 Marines into the tree line in order to envelop the enemy. Thirteen Marines went into the tree line, and all 13 were killed. And, gentlemen, there is not a day that goes by when I don’t think of that.”

(Continued here.)