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
