Last week when I criticized a proposal to outsource Department of Transportation jobs, I wasn’t suggesting that Gov. Bill Walker doesn’t understand the meaning of public service. Nor did I intend to imply all government workers are dedicated to that purpose. Nothing is ever that black and white. But every attempt to downsize, modernize, rightsize or otherwise improve government operations has limited itself to addressing symptoms, not the root causes buried deep in the collective American psyche.
In Walker’s defense, his recent decision to reduce his salary by a third displayed a powerful commitment to the state and its people. Now if his commissioners and the entire Legislature followed his lead, it would be difficult for state employees to complain about their salaries being frozen.
The governor’s message applies to every state resident as well. Remember, we all took a hit when he vetoed $1,000 from our Permanent Fund Dividend. And he wants that to become our permanent sacrifice to help fund state government now and into the future. We need to accept that and move on.
Instead, the most common response to that proposal has been “Don’t touch my PFD.” Why should we give up any of our share of the state’s oil wealth to serve the government’s needs? Didn’t “We the People” create government to serve us?
But it’s also our government “of the people and by the people.” Which means we all have a role in serving the collective good.
Our difficulty with the concept of service begins with its inferior image next to the production lines of our economy. For instance, in the service sector, we couple what we consider low skill work with the lowest end of the pay scale. To call those slave wages is an appropriate reference to the Latin origin of service — servitium — which meant slavery.
On the other side of the spectrum, we show great respect for the men and women in our armed services. The meaning of service here originated in a time when knights defended the kingdom. Service was to the throne first and its subjects second. Near the end of the 18th century, non-military support for the British East India Company, which had its own armies, became known as civil service.
Then came the American Revolution. Along with peace, justice and general welfare, our Constitution intended government to “provide for the common defence” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Hence we have the government serving its people. But that only works as long there are people who value these ideals above their own individual liberty and prosperity.
Isn’t that what it means to be a soldier?
These are the closing lines at the end of a long poem titled “A Soldier’s Sacrifice,” written in 2007 by U.S. Army Major Gerd Schroeder.
“Thank a Soldier but don’t think you can understand,
Unless you have served, his deep pain, pride and honor,
In giving his Humanity to you.”
That’s service of the highest order.
But if we can’t understand unless we’ve served, then how does anyone recognize this call Schroeder says is “giving without grudge, to all Americans, whether sinister or saint.”
Think about a few of the of the U.S. Army’s recruiting slogans. “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure,” to “be all you can be” in “an army of one”. There’s no call to serve anybody except oneself.
A decade ago those gave way to “Army Strong.” In an essay published on the Army’s website, Lt. Col. Wayne Shanks gives us a dozen different meanings of those two abstract words. Service is not among them.
But could a call to serve the country ever been be clearly heard alongside our constant admiration for individual liberty? Isn’t it muffled further by defining prosperity as material wealth, especially when thousands of consumer products have been vying for everyone’s attention ever since we were old enough to watch television? The difficulty with military recruitment is it has to compete in a “what’s in it for me” society.
This is why recruits undergo an intense psychological reprogramming at boot camp. Starting with the induction haircut, the years of self-centered individuality must be eroded away. But still, nothing in their basic training guarantees every soldier will be transformed to henceforth dedicate their lives to serving something greater than themselves.
This diversion through military service was necessary to shed light on the problems with the state and federal civil service system. They’re not lacking a profit motive. It’s not unions protecting bad workers, or employees pampered with job security, that bloat it with inefficiencies. Those are symptoms of a nation whose overriding allegiance to the individual undermines that value of service. And if we don’t address it from that perspective, our government will never truly serve its people.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.
