se·lect
/səˈlekt/
verb
1.
carefully choose as being the best or most suitable: “he has been selected to take part”

Every one of us inherently wants to be selected. “Oh…PICK ME, PICK ME!” We bustled on the school playground, forming up for games. Doesn’t it seem like you can hardly just go participate in a thing anymore without being selected first? “The specially selected elite,” “select cuts of meat,” “they were selected on the basis of their superior ability.” Most of us want to be selected for something, but until what? Until there is nothing higher to be selected for?

Selection for me during my adult years began with the (no kidding) Army infantry. Mind you, selection was a requirement to get into the military in my day of the between-wars, go-nowhere, do-nothing Army, in a day where a pulse and arched feet meant a checkmark in the selection box. I was nonetheless selected by the Army and did my victory dance out in the parking lot of my recruiter station.

Regular Army ground infantry soldiers patrol the streets of Ramadi, Iraq.

There wasn’t much selecting going on in the Army for the next two years of my enlistment. Most of the selecting entailed guard duty, garbage management, bodily excretions disposal on bivouac, and other heavenly, exalted tasks. And yet, “They chose…ME! I was the chosen one, the one selected!”