What follows is a brief, proud, yet calculated advertisement of a summer convention for civically-inclined young men and women, and the parent institution active in its sponsorship. I intend not just to appraise, but also to promote what I feel to be a profoundly transformative and uniquely gratifying retreat, as I know all who have attended will enthusiastically corroborate.

In what appears to be a popular culture committed to the replacement of the profound and sublime with the shallow and vapid, in an age of political climate prone to neglect as archaic and unfashionable love of country and responsibility to community, there exists to my knowledge no better antidote for burgeoning millennials than the American Legion’s Boys’ (and Girls’) State program. Held annually in Morrisville, NY at the start of summer, the program invites young men (and women, to a separate venue) of their junior year to interview at their local American Legion post, selecting only few to participate in the week-long convention. There, attendees will witness, and fall subject to, the marriage of military discipline, political activism, and community cohesion as they run for mock-political office, train and march with marines, hold assemblies with guest speakers of governmental or military background, and interact all the while with American Legion members, individuals who in the purest manifestation of these values served their country during wartime.