A Reunion of Three Brothers and Armed Forces Day, 2021

Jeff Nelligan • May 14, 2021

Last week, my three sons were together in person for the first time in two-and-a-half years. It wasn’t because of Covid. The eldest two are Naval Officers whose deployments to the Far East, Atlantic, and Middle East were extensive and kept them away from seeing each other and the youngest brother, a third-year Cadet at West Point with his own military responsibilities.

This kind of long-term separation is the norm for military families – spouses, kids, and parents. 59 percent of deployed service members are married and 49 percent have children. These situations are difficult, even in an electronically connected age. Moreover, as I know from personal experience, there’s the ever-present anxiety - family members will always glance warily at a ringing phone, which are kept on day and night.

This family sacrifice is just one element for the celebration of Armed Forces Day, May 15. Inaugurated in 1950, the recognition stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under the Department of Defense and the replacement of separate Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Days. President Harry S Truman (himself a World War I Army veteran) led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to recognize our military service members.

Unfortunately, the military experience has never been more removed from American life than today. Thirteen million men and women were in uniform in 1945; 3.5 million in 1968 during the Vietnam War, two million in 1991 at beginning of the Gulf War, 1.4 million in 2010 during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and 1.3 million today. That number represents less than one-half of one percent of the total U.S. population; the approximate 18 million military veterans alive today represent less than six percent of the U.S. population.

A stated theme of Armed Forces Day was to serve an "educational program for civilians" on what military service brings to American life. By any measure, that service is a huge plus for the civic experience. More so than any institution in America, the services are racially and geographically diverse. Indeed, the U.S. Army Reserve and Army Guard platoons in which I served as an enlisted soldier were majority-minority. In my sons’ units, minorities are overrepresented as a percentage of their overall population in the nation.

Second, from day one, the military serves as an ongoing educational and vetting process, from basic training to occupational schools to units where this knowledge is used and constantly refined. Along the way, the military demands certain behaviors – personal responsibility, dependability, camaraderie and always looking out for the welfare of the team. These qualities were the theme of endless exhortations from my drill sergeants and every officer I ever met.

The results of this training certainly benefit America. The Pew Research Foundation finds that a majority of Americans look up to those who served in the military; service members and vets are seen as more disciplined and patriotic than their non-military peers. Other studies reveal that military service is linked with political engagement such as voting and that this connection is strongest for minorities. There is also a close relationship between military service and volunteering and that for veterans, the transition to adulthood, including economic independence from parents, is more stable and orderly for military personnel than for their civilian cohort.

Of course, the military isn’t for everyone. In fact, seven out of ten young men and women today are ineligible to join the military because of poor health, physical fitness and educational shortcomings and law enforcement and disciplinary records. The 30 percent who do qualify? They’re not only attractive to military recruiters but particularly now to employers desperate for trustworthy, reliable employees.

My three sons – two young millennials and the one Generation Z - grew up hearing about their grandfathers’ naval experiences in World War II and Korea and their Uncle’s service as a Marine infantry platoon commander in Desert Storm. My service tales about typing up duty rosters and changing the oil on Humvees were less prosaic.

The chief motivation for their career paths came from the camaraderie and discipline they cultivated in playing on athletic teams from childhood through college, sometimes serving as captains. At seven-years-old and seventeen, the drill was the same - every kid was held accountable and follow-through was expected. It took grinding determination to acquire skills and self-control to handle adversity. The team was all and you were expected to get along with everyone, even if you didn’t like them.

The middle son is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate now assigned to the USS Daniel Inouye; my youngest son, in typical competitive brotherly fashion, demurred from following his older sibling’s college selection and aims to be an Infantry Officer. The eldest son attended a New England college to play sports; the team ideal persisted and he was in Officer Candidate School not long after his final lacrosse game; he’s now with the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group. The two eldest will be in the seas their grandfathers once patrolled.

Collectively, the two eldest at 25 and 24 years of age lead dozens of enlisted men and women, work with complex equipment (some of it lethal) worth hundreds of millions of dollars and have been in tight situations that are absolutely unfathomable to their non-military peers. This is hardly boasting; these kinds of endeavors are performed by tens of thousands of military men and women every day.

On this Armed Forces Day we acknowledge our service members and families in the U.S. and in the 160 nations in which they are deployed. In addition to being the nation’s most admired organization, the military at its core teaches and enhances invaluable personal and civic qualities. No other institution in American life today can make that claim; that’s what Americans should learn from and reflect upon today.

< Older Post Newer Post >

ABOUT THE BOOK

Every Dad in America wants to raise a resilient kid. Four Lessons from My Three Sons charts the course.

Written by a good-natured but unyielding father, this slim volume describes how his off-beat and yet powerful forms of encouragement helped his sons obtain the assurance, strength and integrity needed to achieve personal success and satisfaction. This book isn't 300 pages of pop child psychology or a fatherhood "journey" filled with jargon and equivocation. It's tough and hard and fast. It’s about how three boys made their way to the U.S. Naval Academy, Williams, and West Point – and beyond.

GET THE BOOK NOW

Flag duty and the end of 30 years in politics

By Jeff Nelligan • January 29, 2026

It's 8:30 a.m. on a humid August Tuesday and I’m on the roof of the U.S. Capitol, the Dome rising 280 feet directly above. In my arms is a stack of thin boxes and I’m navigating a plywood gangplank leading to a rusted 15-foot flagpole. A colleague joins me carrying more boxes. She opens one and hands me a 2’ by 4’ American flag which I affix to the pole’s lanyard, raise and lower quickly, unfasten and hand to her as she hands me another. A third colleague brings out more boxes and retrieves the ones containing flown flags. This little dance continues for three straight hours. Afterwards, my colleagues and I carefully re-fold each flag and affix to it a “Certificate of Authenticity from the Architect of the Capitol” reading “This flag was flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of____” and fill in the blank: “The Greater Bakersfield, California Chamber of Commerce”…the 80 th birthday of Wilbert Robinson of Bowie, Maryland, proud veteran of the Vietnam War…” We will perform this task for five days a week until Congress returns from recess. This is my very first job in Washington, D.C. and obviously, I have what it takes. *** Flag duty began my 32-year run in politics and government, which ended last week. It included four tours of duty on Capitol Hill working for three Members of Congress, two Presidential appointments serving Cabinet officers in the Departments of State and Health and Human Services, posts at two independent agencies, and a career position at FDA. The jobs were a mix of purely political positions where being on the south side of an election meant cleaning out your desk and getting good at catchy LinkedIn posts – twice that happened - and career federal government stints where the stakes were less exhilarating. *** I worked principally as press secretary and special assistant. The former job, a common D.C. occupation, was transformed in 2008 with the onset of social media, morphing from daily pronouncements of your boss’s wisdom on the issues of the day to rapid-fire postings on the obvious unreasonableness, even cruelties of your opponents. Sound familiar? As for the latter occupational specialty, special assistant, the terms ‘bagman’ or ‘fixer’ are more apt: A guy always two steps behind the principal but always ready to step up and fix whatever problem arose in daily political life. Need a special vegan lunch for Congressman Busybody, White House tour tickets for the Big Bad High volleyball team, or the personal phone number of the executive assistant to a heavy-duty lobbyist? I was your guy. Every leader needs a fixer. Like anyone else who works in D.C., I occasionally participated in a glam political moment – you know, that unique, epic event that would never ever be forgotten in D.C. history Until it was. *** The best part about government life was working for many men and women who were at the top of their game in the D.C. Swamp, one of the toughest arenas on the planet. Their success, from the vantage point of your humble correspondent, was attributable to four simple rules of life. “If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.” Every office I was in kept metrics on virtually every aspect of the principal’s week – how many meetings and events attended, X posts, interviews, committee votes, constituent letters, action items completed from memos?! Numbers, numbers, and always keeping score – and always the quest to improve. “Never lose it.” In a lifetime of political jobs, I may have heard a boss raise her or his voice half a dozen times, even during and after major-league setbacks. Self-control was their hallmark. One boss, a powerful House Committee chairman once confided to me, “I’m fine that 80 precent of my job is humoring these guys, no matter how crazy they get.” An equally valuable corollary skill: Humility. The ability of these individuals to admit to colleagues and staff when wrong on a particular issue. Which counterintuitively only upped their long-term credibility. “Something’s always gonna go south.” Always the need for a plan C. Every initiative during an upcoming day was scoured for what elements would interfere and how, if they occurred, they could be ameliorated. Hence, in the rare times when things did go south, there was always preparation in advance for getting to 80 percent of what was needed. “Good is not good enough.” Successful politicians and government leaders – and their staffs – never get complacent. If they do, they’re not long for the Swamp. Everyone is always hustling for the edge. A useful corollary learned from an NCO when I was in the Army: Always have your hand up. Volunteering is at the heart of the hustle, the cheerful willingness to take on the new and unknown and do whatever it takes. *** And that’s how it all started. On the second day of my first congressional tour the Member solicited volunteers “for a fun recess job that’ll get you out of the office.” It was flag duty and from that day onwards my government career could only go up. *****