As a friend of mine wrote a few years ago:
Today is Veteran’s Day. I am a Veteran.
I do not need your thanks or appreciation.
I must disclaim up front, I am at this moment up at 6:30am, about to go to the Bob Evan’s Restaurant to take them up of the ‘free hotcakes’ Veteran’s Day offering, because I am a frugal man. Later on today, I’ll be taking advantage of the culinary largesse of another restaurant (or two, or three..). I also do not presume to speak on behalf of any other veteran.
When I say, “I do not need your thanks or appreciation”, I mean this: The symbolism spawned by this federal holiday verges on emptiness. The thanks are as perfunctory and rote as the reflexive “God Bless You” after a sneeze, or the “You Too” we mutter under our breaths after some retail robot sends us off with a overly chipper “Have a nice day.”
I don’t intend to be mean spirited, or to demean those who express truly heartfelt gratitude, but the collective societal action on this day bothers me. It has taken me a while to figure out precisely what it is that bothers me about it all, but I think it is this:
I see a collective sense of guilt dating back to the aftermath of the Vietnam War where members of our society were drafted, and by threat of sanction by the State, forced to go and fight strangers in a strange land and afterwards return to face a significant minority of the populace that treated them as criminals, baby killers, murderers…
And like too many societal reactions to negative trends, attitudes boomeranged too far to the opposite end of the scale to the point where we infantilize our veterans. We infantilize them because we seem to remove from them any responsibility for their choices to sign up and serve. No one born after 1952/3 has been drafted and forced to serve. Our current crop of veterans all volunteered for various reasons. Reasons that span from free education, travel, patriotism, family tradition, economic necessity and other motivations, but none of them forced by the authority of the State.
I knew what I signed up for, and I gambled that the trade of my time and service (and potentially much more) in exchange for education and travel would ultimately end up in my favor. (It was a wash. I was in the Guard during the first Gulf War and volunteered to go, and in a phase of youthful stupidity, I wasted the free educational benefits with too much drinking and endless nights playing Dungeons and Dragons instead of studying). Many of us took the same gamble and most of us came out even or ahead of the game. Some of us lost that gamble, a few in a very big way.
So what’s my point? I signed up for a job. I did that job. I wasn’t duped and I wasn’t used. And, in point of fact, there are firemen, EMT’s, police and even postal carriers that experience more potential danger on a daily basis than I did in a decade+ in federal uniformed service. That many if not most of us veterans (at least in my first hand, anecdotal experience) are doing okay. We made our deals for service, and for good or ill, have reaped the benefits and/or consequences and have continued to move forward in life and overcome the obstacles before us.
There are veterans that *do* need your thanks, and do need it for more than just this day, more than the duration of a parade, or the few moments you open you wallet or mouth. Veterans that do need your thanks also need your help and often need it *daily*. Some, hopefully, just for long enough to get healed or whole, or rebalanced…. Though some will need your help for the rest of their lives.
So, instead of focusing on today, and on those trite well wishes and thank-you’s that will fade and be forgotten tomorrow, do this:
Press your elected officials to keep the promises made to veterans. Make them work to improve VA medical care, to streamline processes that keep veterans away from aid and treatment for PSTD and physical disabilities. Press them to work to shorten what can be year-long waits for help. Help bring down the incredibly high suicide rate for veterans. Hire veterans who need jobs instead of treating them as untouchable PTSD laden balls of explosive rage. There are disabled vets that need help every day, not just thanks today. Find a soldier serving somewhere (anysoldier.com) and write a letter or send a care package.
Do one thing in the preceding paragraph every month for the next decade, if not the rest of your lives.
That would be a meaningful thank you. Otherwise, just save your breath, I won’t mind.
This has been an expression of my personal opinion. I’m sure some of you will disagree, some vehemently…. Have at it. I will not debate it though. Thank vets in the ways you best see fit, and I shall do likewise.