reflections on veterans day

It's Veterans Day in the US (called Remembrance Day elsewhere). The date --11/11 --was selected to commemorate the end of World War I, the "War to End All Wars". Sadly, it wasn't the war to end all wars --humanity has managed to have a couple since. We get like that sometimes ...

Soldiers who return from war are marked physically and psychologically by what they have done and what they have seen. To do those things, to see those things, means they know from experience the absolute best and the absolute worst of what humanity can be. They see bravery in the face of violence, but they also see violence.

Our President-Elect made the following statement in July of this year about a sitting U.S. Senator (who was a Presidential candidate at one time) and a Vietnam vet: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” This was an easy, flippant comment for a man who has never seen war to make. Oh, but he was captured --he's no hero. This about a man who survived torture made by a man who avoided war because he was in college and then got a letter from his doctor saying that he had bone spurs (read: his family had money).

In our recent political history, other leaders who managed to avoid armed conflict personally at times when many others didn't or couldn't (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, ...) have advocated sending our armed service members into harm's way. Again, it is easy to be cavalier about what war means when one hasn't seen it. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (it is sweet and good to die for one's country). Bring it on. 


There are times when fighting is necessary. I don't question this. I just think there are segments of our society --some of them in power --who don't fully understand what happens when people are required to fight. Brain injuries, PTSD, loss of limbs, loss of life, ... . It's all very well to look at these in the abstract and shrug and say, "Well, things happen," and pat yourself on the back for kicking ass or surviving vicariously through a soldier. If you have ever spent any amount of time around anyone who has been in armed conflict before, or if you have been in armed conflict yourself, then you know: things don't just happen; they happen over and over in shockwaves.


My Dad was in Vietnam with the U.S. Coast Guard. I grew up outside D.C. and, when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened in the early 80s, we went. I remember him going through the books there, trying to find names --he looked for a lot of names. Later, in the 90s, he showed us pictures and talked about it --he hadn't really talked about it before. There were pictures of young men on small boats in rivers. As he talked us through the pictures, many names were used that were punctuated with, " ...But he got killed." As he described it, his group was sent in to clear areas along the rivers before the Marines came in.


My Dad survived, but there were signs at times that it was only survival. He did his best to take care of his family. That is what it means to be a veteran.


So, on this, November 11, I thank veterans for their service. I also ask our leaders to be wise about when we ask soldiers to fight. These are human beings --sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. It's not a video game. These are not toy soldiers. They are willing to do what is asked of them, but let's make sure it's a last resort, and let's treat them with respect when they return.