Military mom misplaces grief

DEAR AMY: My family has a long history of military service. Both my sons and my husband served in the Marines. One of our sons never came home. He made the ultimate sacrifice. My daughter is seriously dating a physician. Although her boyfriend is nice and respectful to us and appears to make her happy, whenever we look at him, all we can see is his lack of military service. We also cannot help but think of our son. Why should this young man get to go to school until his late 20s, get a job and live a totally comfortable life while other young men leave their families and never come home? My daughter thinks he is wonderful and says we are being unfair. We think her boyfriend is essentially throwing our family's sacrifice in our face by living in the lap of luxury. My daughter wants us to meet his family, and we are unsure what we should do. We cannot imagine having this man as our son-in-law and do not like the message he would send to our future grandchildren, but we do not want to stop communicating with our daughter. Military Mom

DEAR MOM: Given your family's laudable culture of military service and your tragic loss, it gives me no pleasure to tell you how very narrow-minded and even mean-spirited your views are. You say that every member of your family has to be in the military, but is your daughter? If not, I hope you don't judge her as harshly as you judge prospective family members.

Surely everyone in this country should have the right and the freedom to pursue whatever career path he or she chooses. Every time I go to the hospital, I'm grateful that someone had the brains and talent to go to medical school. But that's immaterial.

If you have a serious problem with this man's character, you should share your concerns with him.

You also should pursue a veterans' grief-support group to help you cope with your loss.