It’s Veterans’ Day today.
Increasingly, more and more Americans have never served in the military. On the one hand, it is a wonderful thing that most of our young people have not had to put themselves in harm’s way. On the other hand, most of our voters and elected politicians have not served: this impacts decision-making, when good judgment is called for.
I’m a Vietnam War era veteran, having served four years in the Air Force. Luckily, I didn’t get shot up or killed but, rather, worked in A.F. hospitals to provide care to those who actually paid the price.
I thank those guys for their service.
My good friend Lloyd and my neighbor Randy were Army infantry grunts in Vietnam. They saw some horrible things, were lucky to survive the ordeal, and bear scars (mental) from the experience. From what I’ve been able to discern from conversations with Lloyd, the Veterans’ Administration hasn’t done enough for victims of PTSD. Lloyd, who went through the Vietnam ordeal fifty-plus years ago, still sees a V.A. shrink to help cope with his anger issues. I don’t think he’ll ever be “right”.
The ugly truth is that there are a lot of Llyod’s out there in society, damaged goods to some degree, trying to deal with PTSD issues. Luckily, my friend was able to return to society, graduate from college, and go on to have a very successful career in finance. He’s one of the success stories, actually. We read all of the time about the other guys with PTSD who were never able to shake the military experience and have committed suicide or unleashed violence on spouses, children, co-workers, and random civilians.
Out of all those hundreds of thousands of American G.I.’s who have served and now are our neighbors and friends, how many ticking time bombs are out there, one triggering incident away from doing harm? This is one of the legacies that we have: men who were trained to kill, who we now expect to “forget” whatever they did and saw, and rejoin society as if they are just like everyone else.
They are not, and they never will be. Combat veterans will never be just like you, won’t think like you do, and won’t look at government (and the military) like you do.
This is good in one way: Veterans understand the role of the military, how it works (and doesn’t work!} and know the horrible price that society pays when its country goes to war. Too many elected officials in Washington D.C. don’t have this wisdom and get us involved militarily in far off places for the dubious reasons. It’s no big deal to them, as neither they nor their children will have to don a uniform and dodge bullets.
The biggest sin is that these draft-dodging politicians then get really stingy when it comes to funding the Veterans’ Administration. “Thank you for your service, now get the Hell out of my office!”
I think that we should emulate the Israelis and require every young adult (women included) to serve two years in the military. If we did this, we’d be less likely to go to war, the military would better reflect society (currently minorities are over-represented), and our future government officials would have more respect for the military role and culture and the sacrifices that our soldiers make.
Ex-President Trump famously misunderstood the military. He thought of the military brass as “his generals” and urged them privately to intercede in domestic matters (to stifle public protest of his actions) and to participate in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Thankfully, our professional military leaders refused to participate in the anti-Constitutional actions of January 6, 2020.
If not for their wisdom and understanding of their role, we might not have a democracy today.
“Thank you for your service!”