Taking a second to address a rising issue I have witnessed among my community of fellow service members. We were trained to act, to work as a team, to identify the enemy, close with and destroy them (marine corps rifleman mission paraphrased). The part that appears to have been missed is respect, compassion and empathy. Missions aren't always kinetic. They might be humanitarian in nature. Having respect, compassion and empathy is what preserves our noble mission and keeps us on the side of the good and righteous. Small things build into larger ones. I write this because I have personally witnessed a degradation in our service members respect, compassion and empathy. I often come into work an hour early to cleanup around base (palm trees cleanup, line painting, pulling weeds, etc) in an effort to keep our home in a well manicured fashion and give back to the institution that has given me so much throughout my life (USMC). When I am doing this work more times than not, Marines are standing around watching me, on their phones waiting for class to start or for a building to open, not offering to help. The general state of things on base has turned into trash blowing around, over grown palms, weeds and grass, dilapidated buildings and maintenance. 90% of the time these issue could be address by people passing by and taking 10 seconds a day to address them. I ask leaders to pull your service members aside and discuss the concept of respecting ones surroundings, having empathy for the man and woman on their left and right and compassion for those who aren't the enemy. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard.