Sunday, November 1, 2015

THOUGHTS ON VETERANS DAY, 2015


Thoughts on Veterans Day, 2015

Veterans Day generated conflicting emotions for me for decades, no doubt due to the residual effects of my Vietnam service. I worked many jobs, both before and after graduating from college, and I don’t recall even one offering employees, let alone those who were veterans, a day off. So the day just came and went for me. Although hard to imagine now, Vietnam vets were considered pariahs by a small segment of American society long after the war ended for the US in 1973. In time, more successful conflicts in Grenada, Panama and the First Gulf War lifted the pall that had hung over the image of the Vietnam veteran. ‘Welcome Home’ parades were held in large cities, the ‘Wall’ was opened in 1982, and a lot of vets were able to come out, open up and move forward. Still, Veterans Day seemed to be for the World Wars I and II and Korea guys, not for us.

Such ambivalence was not uncommon among my generation of vets, and I’m pleased to see that attitude take a 180 degree turn. Vietnam vets are getting old, and the raw emotions of the 1960s and 70s have been soothed. The country has changed and so has Veterans Day.  Indeed, the day is now awash in events, parades and free meal offers that can be, well, embarrassing; not that it stops me from heading to McCormick & Schmick’s every year for my free entree.

Any society that distains its military is in big trouble, and you don’t have to go back to ancient Rome for the proof. France’s failed battles (Indochina, Algeria) to retain its colonial empire resulted in finger-pointing at its soldiers--a contributing factor of the right-left political rift in that society that is even more pronounced than in the US. Soviet abuse of its military in Afghanistan was part of a downward spiral that helped destroy the USSR. British soldiers were “scum” to the Duke of Wellington, even as they, under his command, defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. A society that inspired Kipling to pen, “and it’s ‘Tommy this’ and ‘Tommy that’, and ‘chuck him out, the brute’. But it’s ‘savior of his country’ when the guns begin to shoot.”, came to its senses in time to save itself from the Kaiser and, later, Hitler.

Most ‘civilians’ can’t fathom the emotional baggage that many vets haul around, especially those who served ‘in harm’s way’. Those vets never quite meld completely back into polite society, preferring to keep a discrete mental separation between themselves and those who can’t imagine such experience. Perhaps it’s an overt reaction, perhaps a subconscious one. But I believe the reaction is, partly at least, a vet’s belief that society is always ready to pounce on the soldier when the nation’s foreign endeavors go awry. No one signs up to be a scapegoat. As a result, many vets (not to mention active duty soldiers) prefer each other’s company, if they have a choice. Civilian/business life categorically does not provide that choice, so vets compartmentalize and store away that part of their lives to ‘fit in’. In some cases, vets can drive their military experiences so far down into their subconscious that it becomes almost a shock to have them reemerge decades later.

My dad was like that. Only when I returned from active duty and he felt a camaraderie with me was I (and no one else I’m aware of) told details of his World War II experience. Ed Gritzbaugh took part in the Normandy (D-Day) invasion and nearly died in the crash of his 101st Airborne Division glider near St. Mere Eglise, France in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944. One of his recollections was of his stretcher being carried by German POWs. Another was being strafed and bombed by German planes while lying on that same stretcher on Utah Beach. He didn’t share those details with me until I was also a ‘vet’. Vets talk to each other because they know what to ask, they know they’ll be understood and they know they won’t be judged.

Both our sons served in the Army after their respective high school graduations; Andrew, with the 101st Airborne in the Balkans, then with the Oregon National Guard in Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia; Jack, two tours in Iraq with the 101st. My Army service in Vietnam allows us to enjoy a camaraderie that can be, at times, (per my wife) far too loud and profane. She’s right, of course, but she does not yet realize that such loud, profane interactions are a celebration amongst peers of (literally) simple survival. It’s tantamount to shouting from the rooftops; an act that surely would be even less acceptable.

That, to me, is what Veterans Day is about, that vets are ‘different’ and need to wear that ‘difference’ as a badge of honor, not as a blemish to be hidden. My sons have joined a ‘club’, of sorts, that I’ve read constitutes roughly 7% of the US population; that percentage being those currently serving in the military (less than 1%) plus those still living who’ve ever served (6%).

‘Vets’ are simply this: participants in and survivors of a collective ordeal that results from the foreign policy decisions of our two-party political system. Only a small percentage may have been in combat, heard shots fired or fired their own weapon at an enemy. But, unlike their protected countrymen, each felt that sinking feeling as they reported for conscription or signed away their freedom, sat in a chair and winced as a vendor shaved their civilian hair into a pile on the floor, lined up for endless inoculations, lined up for ‘chow’, dropped for pushups for a shrieking Drill Sergeant, lived with strangers in a bunk-filled barracks, trained endlessly, waited for orders, shipped out to god-knows-where for god-knows-how-long, missed home and family, lost young loves to those still in town, lived in conditions that would bring fellow citizens to tears and for pay that would attract few resumes.

A recent survey found that, within the 18 to 34 ‘Millennial’ age group, only 12% admitted to being ‘patriotic’. Yet, military service thankfully attracts enough young men and women who don’t live within themselves, from all walks of life and all sections of the country. In large part, this is due to the exposure of these young people to veterans, some of whom may be family members, job bosses, classmates at the community college or just the guy down the street who’s reached some under-stated level of success and sports a USMC bumper sticker on his Ford F-150.

So to my fellow veterans on Veterans Day, ‘Welcome Home’ and thanks for displaying, to that tiny percentage of our youth that will follow your example of military service, the aura of quiet dignity that you earned while in uniform. I am proud to belong to your very exclusive ‘club’.

Bill Gritzbaugh

November 11, 2015