This month, I had the honor of delivering not one, but two Army ROTC commencement addresses — first at Temple University, then at the University of Rhode Island.

These weren’t your typical graduations. Twenty-nine young men and women, after years of waking at 5am for physical training, studying leadership and tactics, and balancing the demands of college life, stood tall in uniform, raised their right hands, and became officers in the United States Army.

They weren’t just earning degrees; they were earning their place in one of the most trusted professions in America: the U.S. military.

Becoming an Army officer in the United States is no small feat. Fewer than 7,000 Americans are commissioned each year: roughly 1,000 from West Point, 900 from Officer Candidate School, and around 5,000 through ROTC. More than 60,000 students start the process. Roughly one in 10 make it to the finish line.

That means fewer than one in 10 earn a commission — and with it, the special trust and confidence of the President of the United States to lead America’s sons and daughters in uniform.

I stood before them, offering the customary wisdom about leadership, sacrifice, and living a purpose-driven life.

I said what military speakers usually say: that leadership is a sacred responsibility. That military service is a form of moral commitment — of doing something bigger than yourself. That they now carry the “special trust and confidence” of the president of the United States. I quoted Patton, told war stories, and tried to offer the kind of wisdom you hope sticks with someone at the start of a lifelong journey.

Since my address was to the future military leaders, and the military is an apolitical organization legally barred from political activity under the Hatch Act, I couldn’t talk about specific policies that are hurting our national security.

But what I really wanted to say was this: I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for the debt

My generation — and the one before mine — has left this country with a $36 trillion national debt. Nearly $900 billion a year now goes just to cover the interest. That’s more than we spend on defense, education, or infrastructure. When the debt was $13.5 trillion in 2010 (and we still had troops in Iraq and Afghanistan), the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said our national debt is “the greatest threat to our national security”. The “greatest threat” is now about to be more than three times worse.

The current budget being debated in Congress would add another $4.5 trillion. Bloomberg has called it a fiscal disaster. The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model cites tax provisions approved by the House Ways and Means Committee increasing primary deficits by $4,561 billion over 10 years. Neither party seems serious about solving the problem — and I get it, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. But the American people can still sense that something is deeply wrong. Only two presidents in modern history have left office with a balanced budget: Republican Dwight Eisenhower, a former Army general, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat from Arkansas. That’s it.

This generation doesn’t need lectures. They need leaders.

We have no right to ask young people to serve and sacrifice while saddling them with the fiscal time bomb we’re creating. This generation is literally borrowing money from the younger generation to give themselves a tax break — which the Wharton Budget Model shows how “The top 10 percent of the income distribution receives about 65 percent of the total value of the legislation.”

I’m sorry for our broken healthcare system

We spend almost 20 percent of our GDP on healthcare — $4.9 trillion a year — yet we rank behind every peer country in life expectancy and health outcomes. Seventy percent of Americans are overweight or obese. One in five suffers from a mental health disorder, where most don’t get treatment. And those who do often receive care that isn’t grounded in best evidence-based practices.

We don’t have a healthcare system. We have a sick-care system — one that waits for people to fall apart before it steps in.

​​I’m sorry for how we’ve failed Gen Z

It’s become fashionable to mock Gen Z as lazy, screen-addicted, and soft. That’s unfair — and it’s wrong.

Only 24 percent of Americans today are eligible to join the military. The leading disqualifiers are obesity and mental health. But the problem isn’t a lack of willingness to serve — it’s the system we’ve built. You can apply for a fast-food job today and start tomorrow. Want to serve your country? Get ready for months of red tape.

When I helped lead the Army, we studied Gen Z. Over 70 percent said they wanted to serve their communities or their country. That’s more than the 56 percent who said the same during the Vietnam generation. And yet, we make it harder than ever for them to do so.

We also forgot the most important lesson of Vietnam: Separate the war from the warrior. Back then, we didn’t. We spit on soldiers, called them “baby killers,” and turned their service into political theater. We should never repeat that mistake.

We’re failing young people by not giving them an opportunity to serve their country: in the military, Peace Corps, Teach for America or other opportunities to do something greater than themselves.

And we’ve forgotten too many veterans who continue to come home from our generation’s wars without political leadership that tackles the challenges they face. Fewer are becoming entrepreneurs and many earn less in the civilian workforce than they did on active duty. Veterans are also almost twice as likely to die by suicide.

I’m sorry for the hypocrisy

We tell Gen Z they’re lazy and screen-addicted — but we’re too often the ones who handed them tablets at age 3 so they’d stay quiet at dinner. We raised them on YouTube and iPads and then act surprised when they struggle to unplug.

They didn’t invent the Internet. We gave it to them — and then blamed them for using it.

It’s far easier to criticize a generation than to examine your own.

I remember the names

Each Memorial Day, I visit a quiet corner of 24th and Aspen in Philadelphia. There, a small marble marker honors Patrick Ward — my mother’s best friend and the man I was named after. He died in Vietnam saving his fellow soldiers and was awarded the Silver Star.

He was 19.

Most people walk by the marker without noticing. I never do. My father served them. So did my uncles in Vietnam.

I think of Patrick. I think of the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam. I think of the 19 soldiers I lost as a paratrooper in Iraq. I think of what we ask of these new officers — and how seldom our political class, in both parties, matches their courage.

On Building America

After World War II, veterans came home and built the middle class. Half of them started small businesses — building iconic global brands like Walmart, Nike, and Comcast. Four out of every five members of Congress had military experience. Today, it’s less than one in five. Now, less than 5 percent of my generation of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans start their own business.

At a time when trust in government is at record lows, when young people feel hopeless about politics and uncertain about the future, we need to ask: Are we giving them a country worth believing in?

A 2025 Harvard Kennedy School poll found that only 19 percent of individuals aged 18 to 29 trust the federal government to act in their best interests regularly. This erosion of trust reflects broader concerns about political polarization and institutional effectiveness.

Harvard Youth Poll – Spring 2025: Key Findings

Financial Struggles

• • • • Over 4 in 10 young Americans under 30 are “barely getting by” financially.
      • Only 16% report doing well or very well financially.
      • Financial hardship is more prevalent among women (47%), Hispanics (52%), and those without a college degree (50%).

Sense of Community

• • • • Only 17% of young Americans feel deeply connected to a community.
      • Nearly 1 in 5 (18%) report no strong sense of belonging.

Trust in Institutions

• • • • Just 15% believe the country is heading in the right direction.
      • Approval ratings: President Trump (31%), Congressional Republicans (29%), Congressional Democrats (23%).
      • Only 19% trust the federal government to do the right thing most or all of the time.

I worry we aren’t giving them something to believe in

I had lunch recently with a second-year law student in Miami. He voted last fall — but not for either major candidate for president. “I just didn’t trust either,” he told me. And he’s not alone. Trust in government is at record lows. Civic engagement is eroding. Young people are disillusioned.

And why wouldn’t they be? The political class talks in circles while the debt climbs. Wars rage. And the country feels less united by the year.

What I really wanted to say was this: I’m sorry.

Congress is more divided than ever. The past three sessions have been among the least productive in our history. We bring in $5 trillion in revenue. We spend $7 trillion. And then we act surprised when voters lose faith.

Trust in government is collapsing. Young Americans are disillusioned — not because they’re broken, but because the system is.

Are we giving them a country worth believing in?

What I told them anyway

At Temple, 6,000 students graduated. But only 14 were commissioned as Army officers. Fifteen were commissioned at the University of Rhode Island. It’s hard not to be inspired when you’re around these young great Americans. They’ll leave college and enter a profession where the stakes are as high as they come — life and death, war and peace, leadership and loss.

As I sat in a Barnes & Noble drafting my remarks, earbuds in, I kept coming back to the poem If by Rudyard Kipling — whose own son was killed in World War I:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.

I also reminded them that failure is the tax of success. That grit matters. That leadership isn’t about being perfect — it’s about showing up when it counts.

What I hope they remember

I hope they remember that I didn’t offer just platitudes. I stood in front of them and told the truth. I stood there, looked them in the eyes, and said: We have to do better!

Sorry for the mess. Sorry for the burden. Sorry for the silence.

But I also made a promise: that I’m not giving up. That I will keep fighting for a government that earns their trust — and a country they can believe in.

And I asked my fellow Gen Xers to do the same.

Because this generation doesn’t need lectures. They need leaders. And they deserve better than what we’ve given them.

The Honorable Patrick J. Murphy is a Wharton lecturer, Vetrepreneur, and the 32nd Army Under Secretary after earning the Bronze Star for service in Baghdad, Iraq as an All-American with the 82nd Airborne Division — @PatrickMurphyPA on Instagram and Twitter.

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