(birds chirping) (Ryan's mom speaking Korean) - I think I'm the left, I'm the one on the left, yeah.

(Ryan's mom speaking Korean) - No, I think it's the same.

You know, I want to believe that if you work hard enough, if you just have enough vision, then you can achieve what you want to achieve in your life.

Obviously, that's not completely true.

There's a little bit of faith involved there.

(Ryan's mom speaking Korean) That was when we were cadets.

(soft music) - The American ideal, when you try to describe it, you recognize that it's fragile, but I think the fragility only comes if you stop working at it.

And so we brought together young people from different backgrounds who have strong senses of obligation.

We want to get at the question of how do we keep this tremendous narrative, this ideal going forward, and how do we think about our responsibility to one another and to the country?

- Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, those three things that we promise to offer people in this nation, I think is a simple but beautiful concept.

- A strong military is absolutely essential to any functioning country, especially one so large.

And so someone has to raise their hand to serve.

- For me what it means to be a citizen is not seeing yourself above anything or anyone.

It's seeing yourself as being a part of something.

By definition, being a citizen of a country, you are a part of something far greater than you.

- We have to work to understand what the common enterprise is and to affirm it.

And not just to affirm it for our own benefit, but to recognize what it means about responsibilities to others, if we're gonna keep this organism alive.

(soft guitar music) (soft music) Well, I've really been looking forward to this conversation and I want to start out this way.

There's a sense that Americans are feeling more and more isolated from one another.

So give me a way to describe how it makes you feel for the state of our current national dialogue.

- I want to say hopeful, but I think that I feel like just nervous a lot.

People still care and they want the best for this country and they want the best for their communities, but I think it's sometimes hard to figure out how to do that and give people a way forward.

- Yeah, I don't think that the issue we have with young Americans or Americans more generally is an indifference, but I think how that translates for every American looks different.

- [Condoleezza] Yeah, right.

That's a good point.

- It's definitely something that makes me anxious in society in general.

I think there is a severe lack of empathy, but when I think about my experiences in the army, when you're in the army, you're with people from all over the country, from all different backgrounds, but they're still willing to be there for each other, to go through hardship together.

In that sense, I'm very hopeful that as a country we can overcome these things that make me anxious.

- [Condoleezza] Yeah.

(soft music) (birds chirping) - [Robin] I've been helping my dad at Subway since I was a young girl.

Put them in here.

- [David] We can just put them in the bread box because we have no bread, so.

- [Robin] Oh, we really don't.

- [David] No.

- [Robin] Yeah, I though that was a joke.

My dad has worked full-time since I can remember.

He could hardly take a vacation with us.

- So take these and we'll just line up the counter with bread.

- [Robin] Okay.

I've just seen all the challenges he's gone through with not being able to get employees in a small tourist town and then relying on his family to kind of bridge the gaps.

- [David] Probably since you've been here last week, we have to score now.

- [Robin] Okay.

So now I go like this?

- [David] Yeah.

So let me just do a couple.

- Dad, you're doing a great job, keep going.

You can do two trays.

- [David] I know.

- If you look at a political map of the town that I grew up in, it is quite red.

I didn't get the green peppers and onions to go in.

- [David] They won't, they never go down.

- Okay.

And then in high school I moved to Boulder, Colorado.

That was a huge shift from growing up in one part of the county, moving to the other side of the mountains with people who'd grown up around a more liberal side of things.

I think I've always had a good balance in perspectives and people challenging me in like how I think.

- I lean conservative because, you know, hiring people and training people and paying bills and-- - And like taxes being a big part of that.

- [David] Right.

- [Robin] Yeah.

I think I just really believe strongly at the core of what America stands for, everyone having the same opportunity to make something for themselves.

- [David] You believe in people having a chance and taking care of people when they need help.

- Yes, I do.

- But you do, you believe in taking care of people-- - Yeah.

- [David] When they need help.

- And I don't know, I just always believe very strongly in that American Dream.

- [Speaker] Stand up.

Ease.

Hey, good morning.

Welcome back.

- I'm a platoon leader in Alaska.

The one thing I will say is we need to get the generators back to the motor pool.

The way my financial situation and my background went, like I didn't have a ton of financial stability.

So your 916 is out there already?

- [Speaker] Yes.

- Okay.

- [Speaker] 916 is ready.

- Okay.

I decided that I wanted to pursue this career in the military because I would come out with a job at the end.

We're doing the wrecker, the contact truck, and the fueler.

And I wanted to give back and serve my country.

And the military is just a very direct path to doing that.

Yeah, you guys are going to have to bring them in just in case they do need any work.

- [Speaker] Jumpers will remove the static line, the static hook from-- - In American society, it's a very individualistic culture.

We've gotten away from wanting to take care of each other and it's been more about how do I take care of myself?

How do I get a promotion?

- [Speaker] Number two, prepare to land.

Land.

Oh, hell yeah.

There we go.

- In the military, it's not perfect, but we come from all different walks of life, all different political ideologies, different backgrounds.

We have different opinions, but we're able to talk about that because we have a mutual respect for each other.

Are you still going to be active duty?

When I first joined, I didn't really know how long I would want to stay in the military, but I've met amazing people in this organization and the more I feel taken care of and the more I feel like I'm giving back and helping others, the more that encourages me to stay.

Thanks.

(inspirational music) (upbeat playful music) - I am so happy to present Binion and Robin Gallagher.

(people cheering) - I just married another army officer and I am so fortunate to have met him in the army, somewhere I never expected to meet the love of my life, but we share a lot of the same values.

Once we got married, we both got stationed in Maryland.

- Does this look off Robin?

- No.

It's crazy to say, but we were so sure that we wanted to be together that we're like, "Let's just get married."

- Yeah.

Once you're married, they'll try to station you as closely as possible.

- It's really nice being married to someone else in the military because you get like, we both have the same pay and you get double the housing allowance.

- Yeah, I'd say it just makes it a lot easier because you can talk about your job and they'll understand because not a lot of people understand the military.

- I just don't know how strongly Americans feel about patriotism still.

I think both of us very much feel it and we want to make this country better and maybe the military's not right for everybody, but I think we both feel like very secure in our decision.

- [Speaker] Warm up those hamstrings a bit.

My job in the army is, I mean, anyone's job in the military is to prepare for war.

That's the whole point of a military.

You can't really sugarcoat that.

My first oath is to the Constitution, like First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to vote, the right to freely assemble.

We have these guaranteed freedoms in America.

It's my job to protect and defend that in the military.

Between the pushups and the rope climbs, I was like, ah.

In this country, there's a lot to be proud of.

The whole basis of the Constitution is that it's like it's not perfect.

The goal is to form a more perfect union and to always be bettering the country and ourselves.

I think there are times where it's important to stand up, setting the tone and setting the values for what we strive to be.

- She's excited.

Oh, man, that's great.

- [Robin] Her name is Rory.

Something I think about a lot is how Americans are like a self-selected population.

Most people who came here chose to come here and saw America as this like land where they could live how they wanted.

I think it's up to us, the younger generations, to like uphold those ideals, uphold what our ancestry like wanted for us.

- Sometimes you believe that mythology, if you will, or that set of values might start to fade a little bit with each generation.

Do you think that it still burns brightly?

- It still burns brightly.

Sometimes you can kind of take that for granted, but at least for me, I believe that that dream is still there.

- I think it does burn brightly.

We just have to maybe add a little bit more wood to the fire.

- For me, when I think about young people today, I would say that young people are incredibly hungry to, you know, have a stake in this project we call democracy, but we need to show them, you know, that engaging with these values doesn't just mean one thing, and it definitely shouldn't just mean taking a civics test.

(soft playful music) - All right, so Olivia is going to kind of lead you through this conversation.

Feel free to jump in and have a fun conversation.

- So I'm curious where you feel like the Constitution shows up in your life.

- We have a government class here.

We talk a lot about Supreme Court cases that have set precedents.

- [Olivia} Yeah.

- And it's kind of cool to see today when doing certain things, you can almost kind of be like, "But I'm able to do this freely because of this court case."

- Yeah, exactly.

So I came to this interest in the Constitution and free speech because my grandparents and great-grandparents are all Holocaust survivors, and their biggest lesson from surviving the unimaginable is that really bad things start to happen when people aren't able to express themselves.

My family came to this country from Nazi Germany where they didn't have the right to speak up against the propaganda and tropes about their people and their community and their culture.

Free speech, it's not just about sharing your opinion, but seeing an opinion in the world that is wrong or is not based in truth and being able to correct it.

(soft guitar music) When I was in high school, I founded the first ever High School Law Review to have students writing articles about the Constitution.

Before we debate, we're going to take like five minutes to write questions.

Without really realizing it, I had created an extensive constitutional law curriculum for high schoolers.

Fast-forward to today, I now get to work with students like you all, all over the country, in helping them start High School Law Review chapters of their own.

In Judaism, you're very much encouraged to study in something called Chavrusa, which is group work.

It's the idea that learning cannot go on without another person there in front of you while you're studying a text.

What that value has taught me is say, yeah, my perspective only goes so far and that other people that I'm studying with are going to see things in a way that I do not see them as being.

So should free speech protect expression that makes people feel unsafe or should there be limits?

- I think that if someone, if they were religious talking about their religious beliefs and someone felt unsafe, uneasy or something like that and didn't agree with them, I don't think it's the religious person's fault for talking about what they believe.

- But if they're trying to say something that makes you feel physically or mentally unsafe, then maybe that needs to be limited to an extent.

- Yeah, I feel like adding on to what she said, it's all about context and the context.

- It's pretty difficult to find any moment in history where being in high school, there wasn't some dark moment for some student out there in the way that this country thinks about people, rights, its citizens.

To understand that the constitution is something that helps you when you feel that way is an important thing.

- The point of free speech is that we want like the citizens of America to be able to express themselves and feel safe, feel like they won't get prosecuted if they speak.

- High School Law Review as a program has been taking off at a pace that has quite literally been hard to keep up with.

The program has expanded to now being really all over the country.

(soft music) - This is my mother, that's my father.

I'm almost 10 months short of 100, grandpa was 90.

Yeah.

- How did they feel about the United States and being here?

- They loved here, they loved being here.

What do you mean how did they?

How could they not love being here?

Okay, saved their lives.

Where are we gonna go?

All these people here that you see, they all came over.

The American values are Jewish values, okay?

If you really want to look at the real American, the real values of the Constitution are Jewish values also.

So there was no dichotomy between the two.

- I wanna bore you in on your personal experiences a little bit more and talk about how they have shaped what you think your responsibilities are now to this amazing experiment that is the United States of America.

- For me, the term fabric as it relates to all of this has always felt really right.

There's a fabric, right?

- [Robin] Yeah.

- And there's a sense of duty to your fellow citizen that I think we need to really figure out how we make tighter, right?

- Yeah.

- My way on a personal level of turning has been joining the military.

I want us as a people to be able to turn that individualism into that collective.

And I think that goes back to the constitution, what's holding that fabric together?

- The truths that we hold to be self-evident.

- [Robin] Exactly right.

- And we need to start, recite them, because it turns out they're not so self-evident after all.

- [Robin] Yeah.

- Exactly, yeah, right.

- You ask a lot of soldiers why they do what they do.

It's hard to find a lot of people who would say, "Oh, I do it for the constitution.

I do it for my country."

Because at the end of the day, a lot of them will tell you it's about the people to their left and to their right.

And I think to make it easier for people, that's kind of how we have to think about it, is keep it simple.

Start with the people right next to you.

Treat them with respect and, you know, embody those values that you want to see in the world.

(Ryan's mom speaking Korean) It was a little too bright.

Photography has really allowed me to self-reflect.

(soft guitar music) I've been able to take some photographs that I really, really like.

Through that process, I think you get to learn what's important to you, what you find beautiful.

In the army, a lot of things appeal to people who want to be soldiers, but I feel like the number one thing is they're longing for community.

You really fall in love with the culture.

It's a very values-centered organization.

They teach you from the beginning, leadership, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage.

I think as a kid, unsure of what he wanted to do, where he was going, that really appealed to me because that really is what anchors people is their values.

Hey, Jacob, this is Lieutenant Ryan Chae.

Yeah, I'm just returning your phone call and I was wondering if you're still interested in the army.

My current job is a recruiting operations officer.

I would highly recommend enlisting because you get to specialize on specific skills.

Having talked to people who are just exiting high school, I would definitely say that this new generation is very tuned in to society.

- I don't agree with a lot of the things that America does because a lot of the times we're not fighting for freedom.

We'll be fighting for political power, advantages.

That is my biggest worry because like, yeah, there's a risk of going to war and stuff, but I would go without a worry in my mind if it was a cause I believed in.

- For me, service is an ideal in itself.

It's something that I want my life to surround.

Just that idea that you're sacrificing your time and yourself for a cause greater than you, right?

And for me, that's what the military has been, is just this institution that protects national security.

But it's a tricky subject because I see where you're coming from too.

- It's like walking a tight line.

- [Ryan] Yeah.

- You know?

And it's really difficult to decide what the best decision is.

- Are there any values or ideals about the military that kind of resonate with you?

- I definitely say the work ethic and discipline that it brings, and it's like a sense of togetherness at that point because you're all working together for one goal.

- In the infantry, we kind of call that brotherhood or sisterhood, and so I think that's really true, and it's a feeling that you can't really forget.

(soft music) Okay, raise your right hand, repeat after me.

I, state your full name.

(group stating their name) - [Ryan] Do solemnly swear.

- [Group] Do solemnly swear.

- [Ryan] That I will support and defend.

- [Group] That I will support and defend.

- [Ryan] the Constitution of the United States.

- [Group] The Constitution of the United States.

- Against all enemies.

- [Group] Against all enemies.

- Foreign and domestic.

- [Group] Foreign and domestic.

- The Army, in a sense, takes away your freedom when you sign that contract, but to me, freedom is being able to choose what you give your freedom for, because at the end of the day, everything takes away your freedom.

Everything that's worth it in life takes away some degree of freedom, like your family, your relationships, communities, work, all these things take away some level of freedom.

So really, to be free is to have an option on what you give away your freedom for.

(inspirational music) Do they have doenjang?

- Doenjang?

Oh, doenjang miso.

(Ryan's mom speaking Korean) So I'm choosing to leave the army.

I'm at a point in my life where my values are changing.

(Ryan's mom speaking Koream) I've realized I care a lot more about my own relationships, connection to other people, vulnerability.

(Ryan and his mother speaking to cashier in Korean) And so these things have kind of led me to look for something else, maybe reinvent myself a little bit.

(soft music) Coming out of the army where it's a lot more simple, it's a little overwhelming to think about everything.

It is exciting, but I feel really kind of small.

Oh no, don't worry about it.

(group laughing) The veterans community at Columbia is very strong.

I find myself leaning on them a lot.

It's a lot easier to open up to them.

I can kind of express my concerns and worries in a way that they find it easy to understand.

Okay, we're gonna do a smiling one and then a serious one.

Okay, serious.

- Wait.

- [Ryan] Oh, this is so cute.

- That one's pretty, that one is really good.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- [Ryan] You're a natural.

Most vets I've met are very humble.

Oh, yeah.

It's kind of hard to make them break out of their shell and like show something of their personality.

- Oh yeah, that's perfect.

(soft music) - [Ryan] That slight moment when I show them the picture and they just kind of smile and like, they're just like, "Oh my gosh, this is a great picture."

I think for me, that's what, like gets me going.

It's weird how simple it is, but yeah.

(inspirational music) - I've learned a ton of patience in the military and just learning how to react when I don't agree with something.

If Americans can really break down their feelings and why they think a certain way and like try to get to know one another as people, it's a lot easier to build strong bonds and have those hard conversations.

- It really humanizes us all at when we know what it is that my family came to this country hoping for and what my neighbor in my apartment building or whether it's my neighbor in my dorm room, you know, if I were to really know what their family's stories were, I think it would bring a lot of humility back into the conversation that we don't have right now.

- If we really want to distill it down to what is needed to build a strong community, I think it simply is people have to be willing to show up and not just make their local communities better, but also vote, be a part of the discussion, serve, not just in the military, but in any respect.

- Regathering ourselves around a common set of principles, values, experiences reminds us that America only works if we are protecting and pushing forward what it means to be American.

(inspirational music) (upbeat music)