Veterans Day

It wasn't until I went out to get the mail that I remembered that today is the proper Veterans Day, rather than the holiday day, or the furniture sale day, or the day to earn political points on the backs of young (and not so young) men and women who serve as the apolitical armed force of the United States. I went to the oak filing cabinet to see if I could find my honorable discharge certificate and my DD214. Among those papers were some photographs of a man thirty-five years younger, with jet black hair and not a wrinkle. On my expired military ID it had my weight as fifty pounds lighter than I am now--a skinny wretch back then or a fat fuck today? Hard to say, really, though I'm sure some of the commenters will weigh in with their opinions (the ones who know me, anyway). I'm probably healthier now than then. I smoked a pack a day or more then, drank like a young man can and ought to before he gets serious, and was more belligerent than a stupid stringbean ought to be.

It was not a particularly popular thing to be in the military then, but I still was proud of being there. True, I was exceedingly lucky--Russian language training, crypto school, and Berlin, rather than advanced infantry training, survival school, and Vietnam--so I had it much, much easier than many others whose military experience was the kind of adventure that involves mutilation and death rather than simply strange lands and new ways of viewing the world. Across this nation there are men and women who are similarly going through their old boxes of memories, remembering comrades, or still outrunning nightmares. Their sacrifices were surely greater than mine, and I must remind myself daily to be grateful for the grace that their selflessness has accorded me in my life.

It is a time I also remember my grandfather who served the Army in WWI, my father who served during Korea, my uncles and aunts who fought in Europe and the Pacific in WWII, and how as a child I thrilled to look at their photo albums of them when they were young, and dark-haired, and skinny, and immortal.

There are many, many things worth fighting for--I am no pacifist--and when we choose our battles wisely and reluctantly, we can honor the memory of all those who have passed before. Please remember this day that those who wear the uniform do so because it is essential, and that even in the face or irresponsible leadership, they honor us all with their dedication and sacrifice.

Happy Veterans Day.