Less common, however, is offering and providing assistance when there is no crisis, when all a community needs is volunteers to help with the local Red Cross, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, sports leagues, clean-ups or a host of other activities and events. As service members, we have a tendency to become insulated from the people we serve. We may live in the local community, but our professional and social lives are focused on the installation. We are looking out wondering why they are looking in. It is usually only in times of crisis, when our capabilities meet their needs, that we realize they are us and we are them.
Some installations have active and impressive volunteer programs that support local communities.
Others have none. All can and should. We have always been there to aid the people we serve. The reverse has not always been true. The words of Civil War Union Army Maj.