Just to put my biases out front here, I come from a family of veterans. My father-in-law served in occupied post-war Germany, my brother-in-law served in OIF and on many much more covert operations. My grandfather was a lieutenant in the US Army Signal Corps during WWII, my father served as a USAF fireman during the Vietnam War, and I signed the paperwork to join the USAF the week after turning 18 and (to most everyone’s surprise) managed to avoid getting kicked out for almost a decade thereafter. All that is to say that I’ve been around enough servicemembers to have some sense of how many of them think. They aren’t thuggish or mercenary, and only a very few of them really look forward to combat. Many if not most of them are working fairly ordinary jobs, although the hardware they work on may well be extraordinary. And rather few of them are comfortable with being effusively praised, much less demanding that we worship them as heroes. Even the true heroes are fairly reticent about it, in my limited experience. Oftentimes it seems like you have to drag war stories out of them, as my other brother-in-law noted two years ago.
Yesterday, my eldest child’s school hosted a Veteran’s Day reception and assembly. He performed in the string quartet (because every top-notch reception needs a string quartet) and I showed up mostly because he was playing and I love to watch him perform.
https://vine.co/v/OiH1TwhjuWX
Also, not about to pass up free hors d’oeuvres.
Met some interesting folks during the reception, one of whom taught at my alma mater. We talked shop a bit, as you do, turns out we’ve worked with some of the same people, because the service is a small world, after all. None of the veterans whom I met seemed anything but humble and perhaps a bit overwhelmed at this public display of gratitude. Which brings us naturally to the question of what these people are grateful for, exactly?
I can only speak of myself, really, and as a REMF (look it up) I’m grateful to everyone who put themselves in harm’s way in the name of national service, without knowing in advance whether they would be lionized or vilified for doing so. I don’t think it is particularly controversial at this point to note that the last couple wars of liberation did not go nearly to plan, but the accountability for our failures lies with the civilian political leadership and ultimately with the electorate as a whole. It would be beyond cack-handed to lay the blame for neo-conservative chicken-hawkery at the feet of those who actually served as warfighters and those who supported them.
How can we best honor our military veterans? Paul Loebe has some ideas about collective sacrifice and treating war as a truly national endeavor. I’d say that a good first step would be demanding that Congress do its damn job and open up a robust debate on whether or not to authorize military force against the burgeoning Islamic State. Then maybe get around to making the Veterans Administration something we can be proud of again. Other good ideas may be found here.
Your thoughts?
