Black, white, Hispanic, uneducated and doctoral graduates, rich, poor, Jesus-freaks and atheists, we made a community of wooden barracks bleached from scrubbing, double deck bunks, foot lockers exactly aligned and exhaustion.

By the time we graduated, I would have marched off a pier with these men and I knew that however tough life might get in the future, it would never be this tough again and I would survive.

There’s enormous personal and societal benefit in that.

Personal, in that we are victims of the particular hunk of world in which we grow up and it’s not enough to know intellectually that people live differently and are different. Depending, each upon the other, smelling our smells and sharing food, misery and common toilets, expands that intellectual knowledge into something real and personal and lasting.

I was privileged and learned what it was like to be without privilege. Which leads to the societal benefit, the Karl Roves and Ted Kennedys having actually showered and crapped next to each and every strata of American society over which they exert influence. That’s something that's missing from our political world, with the rare exception of a John McCain here and there.

Here and there is not enough.