Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Two days when we honor our military soldiers,
fallen and walking. When we show how
much we appreciate them. Two days of
honor; we celebrate Veterans Day today.
So what are you doing tomorrow?
For full disclosure, I’m a military brat.
I lived the first twelve years of my life with an active duty military
father and the next nine years under the umbrella of the military as a retired
dependent. I speak a language that is
slightly different from civilians. For
example, when a civvie (civilian) asks me what my dad did, I say he was in the
Army. When another brat or military
person asks, I am just as likely to reply that he retired E-8; active duty
SpecForces PSYOP, 1st Air Cav Mobile, taking his last six months OR
in hospital management. While others
reminisce about the house they grew up in, I have to recall the eight or nine
homes I grew up in before I turned twelve.
When other people lived on Maple
Street or King Street, I lived at addresses such as
7519-A 70th Tank Battalion
Road. I had
an I.D. card years before most kids got their driver’s license. And while you might talk about all the kids
that played on your street, I would struggle to make you understand how an
entire street of playing children would come to a complete and silent
standstill, staring at the military sedan with two officers in full dress uniforms
as it drove slowly down our street, praying they wouldn’t stop in front of our
house. No, the next one, please, the
next house, not mine...
And while the vast majority of people in this country
remember the sacrifice of our soldiers on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, I, and
the other veterans, military families, soldiers and brats remember it every day
of the year. For us, there is no day
after Veterans Day. We lived it… live
it… every day.
Understand, I’m not writing this with an “us versus you” attitude. Far from it.
The fact that we celebrate these holidays is wonderful. The fact that our country has always
considered our soldiers as being as close as the Joe or Jane next door is great
(and unique in the world). Even with a
truly professional army, we still think of our serving men and women as
“citizen soldiers.” For the last decade,
we’ve had a swell of appreciation for our soldiers that has been unmatched
since World War II. We are proud of them
and people publicly approaching and thanking uniformed soldiers is common.
No, this isn’t to chide people for being insensitive or not thinking about our
soldiers. This is just a gentle nudge
for you to, perhaps, think just a bit more about them and what this day means to them. Not to feel guilty, but to understand. And take your pride in our soldiers to a new
level.
My dad was in Vietnam. At the height of the “all soldiers are baby
killers” era. My family was stationed on
an Army base while he was on tour; Ft.
Knox, Kentucky
(strange to refer to fighting in a warzone as being a “tour”, eh? Again, the military lexicon; it was
considered a Tour of Duty). Now, I knew
my Dad wasn’t a baby killer. I knew his
reasons for volunteering. Yes, he
volunteered, just as he had volunteered to join the military instead of being
drafted. Before he left, he sat my
brother and myself down one night and explained his reasons to us. We tried to process it in our nine and twelve
year old minds (me being the younger), but what we got out of it was that it
was his duty to his country to go and serve.
His duty. It wasn’t his
obligation, as I said he volunteered. It
was about duty; service to his country. I
had to think about that: My father was willing to put his life on the line for…
what? For “duty”? What the hell does that mean and why was it
more important to him than his life?
It was somewhat cleared up for me much later when he had returned, had retired,
and we were watching the news one night.
The hot news was debating whether or not anyone had a right to desecrate
the U.S. Flag. We watched some Americans
dragging the Flag down a muddy gutter, protesting U.S. policy. It was followed by an art exhibit of
photographs of supposed U.S.
atrocities. The photos were very small
as they hung on the museum wall and the only way to really see them was to
stand really close…. right on top of the American Flags that had been placed on
the floor. To say it made my father
angry was an understatement. I listened
to him rant about the “idiots and radicals” who had no respect for our country;
about jerks who protested without ever stepping “in-country” (meaning in a
battle zone), and so on. I can’t say I
disagreed with a lot of what he said.
But when he was done, when he calmed down, he nodded toward the TV and
said “Oh, well. I guess that’s the reason I went over there,
so they could do that.”
That’s when I got it. My dad had made a
deal, an agreement with the rest of us.
He said “I’ll serve in uniform and I’ll fight these wars. I’ll risk my body and my life and I will
possibly die. In exchange for that, you
have to promise me that my children and the children of all Americans will live
in freedom, even if it means they have the freedom to desecrate the very Flag I
died under.”
Now, take my Dad out of all this and apply it to every soldier and veteran of
our armed services. Yes, the cynical
among us will say that people are forced to join the military for economic
reasons, but that’s very shortsighted. Maybe
they are out there, but I’ve not met them.
But it doesn’t matter. There are
easier and less risky ways to make money than standing on the front lines of
our country’s defense. The bottom line
is, whether they consciously realize it or not, every soldier has made that
same agreement with us. Yes, us. All of us; we are this country.
I don’t care what your politics are, I don’t care if you are pro or anti
foreign policy, I just don’t care in this regard. I don’t care whether you feel Vietnam or Iraq or whatever was a mistake
or not, I don’t really care because whether or not you care means nothing to
the soldiers fighting for you. They are
going to fight for you whether you like the war they are fighting or not. They don’t make that distinction because they
are fighting for a promise and an ideal.
Even when they don’t know it, that’s the agreement they made.
An agreement with us.
Remember that on this Veteran’s Day. And
tomorrow. And the next day. And every day of your free life.
To underline this, I want to quote a post that a friend made recently on her
facebook. I was amazed when I read it
because… well, you’ll see the similarities:
”A veteran is somebody who at one time wrote a blank check made payable to the
people of the United States of America for an amount up to, and including, their
life... simply for the honor of defending our nation and preserving our way of
life. Lets remember all the men and women who have given us their blood, sweat,
tears, and in some cases, their lives.” – C. Tyler Storm
She posted this before I could post my blog.
I saw it in the middle of struggling through a rewrite of my usual clumsy
verbage. In one sweet, simple and brief
paragraph, she managed to sum up everything I was trying to get across with a
mountain of words. Kudos to her.
I also want to make mention of a friend’s endeavor and her website. Anita Holsapple is a friend who is producing
a documentary called MENTAL VALOUR. It
deals with the day to day experience of military families in time of war. For brats and veterans, it’s a walk down a
familiar street. For civilians,
hopefully, it’s insight that will make you appreciate our men and women in
uniform even more.
http://www.mentalvalor.com/
In case you are wondering, here is an incomplete total of
those who have fulfilled their part of the agreement my dad made and the
contract C. Tyler referred to since the American Revolution:
U.S.
Military Service During War................41,891,368
Battle
Deaths.................................................651,030
Other Deaths (In Theater)...............................308,800
Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater).............230,279
Non-mortal
Woundings.................................1,431,290
Living War
Veterans...................................17,456,000
Living Veterans (War & Peacetime).............23,442,000
(source: Department of Veteran Affairs, NOT including
statistics from the War on Terror)
It’s too easy to get comfortable in our society and fall
prey to complaining about what we don’t have while ignoring what we do
have. We have a history of great people
from simple backgrounds who chose to fulfill their side of the same agreement my Dad made. The greatest tribute to our fallen soldiers
and living veterans is to never forget to honor our agreement with them.