About that "thank you to veterans" thing ...
Every November 11th, a whole bunch of people get thanked. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that.
Every social networking page is filled with posts. Martial poems, particularly "In Flanders Field," get quoted over and over again. Car and furniture dealerships hold sales, announced with bunches of old-fashioned waving-flag banners.
This is not in and of itself a bad thing. I don't mind, and I doubt many of my fellow veterans do either. And yet ...
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns fell silent on the Western Front. All wars are bad, and some are very bad; the line that had been more or less fixed in place since late 1914 may very well have been the worst ever. The US was, truth be told, a bit player in this; Americans suffered and died, but the scale of the suffering and death which Europe had inflicted on itself is still beyond comprehension. The great feats of endurance and valor which define the best parts of American military history -- Valley Forge, Fort McHenry, Chapultapec, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Bastogne, Guadalcanal, Pusan, Chosin, Khe Sanh, Wadi al-Batin -- drop them in the middle of the Somme or Verdun, and they vanish. They become background noise, minor skirmishes forgotten in the main event.
I served honorably, and most of the time with pleasure, for ten years; as an infantryman and as a medic, as a soldier and as an airman, in peace and in war, at home and overseas. My war was bad, because all wars are bad, and it left me with memories I can't shake and will never be able to, memories I could well do without. I can say, without breaking my arm patting myself on the back, that medics and infantrymen are unique in their understanding of what war actually is. Infantrymen do the killing, close-up, whites-of-their-eyes, and most of the dying as well; and medics pick up the pieces, patch up the wounded and comfort the dying, fighting a personal war which is the same in every time and place regardless of which war they're in, which group of evil old men in the halls of power has created the chaos into which terrified kids must descend.
By comparison to the best day in, say, 1916, my war was a walk in the park.
Only for a period of a few months during my entire term of service, between my arrival in Europe and the final disintegration of the USSR, did I actually believe I was defending the Constitution of the United States of America against enemies foreign and domestic. The rest of the time? It was a job. A pretty good job, mostly, sometimes a very difficult job, and occasionally a very dangerous job. A job, not a calling, nonetheless.
And when I did go to war, it was for no noble cause. Not a bad cause, you understand, but not an especially good one either. It was because evil old men far away had decided that once again, it was time for young men and women to die. Like it usually is. 1914-1918 is barely within living memory now, but that lesson should stay with us always.
So, speaking for my fellow veterans: we gladly accept your thanks, and you're welcome. Speaking for myself: you're welcome, but please always try to remember what you're thanking us for.
(x-posted to
danielmedic)
Every social networking page is filled with posts. Martial poems, particularly "In Flanders Field," get quoted over and over again. Car and furniture dealerships hold sales, announced with bunches of old-fashioned waving-flag banners.
This is not in and of itself a bad thing. I don't mind, and I doubt many of my fellow veterans do either. And yet ...
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns fell silent on the Western Front. All wars are bad, and some are very bad; the line that had been more or less fixed in place since late 1914 may very well have been the worst ever. The US was, truth be told, a bit player in this; Americans suffered and died, but the scale of the suffering and death which Europe had inflicted on itself is still beyond comprehension. The great feats of endurance and valor which define the best parts of American military history -- Valley Forge, Fort McHenry, Chapultapec, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Bastogne, Guadalcanal, Pusan, Chosin, Khe Sanh, Wadi al-Batin -- drop them in the middle of the Somme or Verdun, and they vanish. They become background noise, minor skirmishes forgotten in the main event.
I served honorably, and most of the time with pleasure, for ten years; as an infantryman and as a medic, as a soldier and as an airman, in peace and in war, at home and overseas. My war was bad, because all wars are bad, and it left me with memories I can't shake and will never be able to, memories I could well do without. I can say, without breaking my arm patting myself on the back, that medics and infantrymen are unique in their understanding of what war actually is. Infantrymen do the killing, close-up, whites-of-their-eyes, and most of the dying as well; and medics pick up the pieces, patch up the wounded and comfort the dying, fighting a personal war which is the same in every time and place regardless of which war they're in, which group of evil old men in the halls of power has created the chaos into which terrified kids must descend.
By comparison to the best day in, say, 1916, my war was a walk in the park.
Only for a period of a few months during my entire term of service, between my arrival in Europe and the final disintegration of the USSR, did I actually believe I was defending the Constitution of the United States of America against enemies foreign and domestic. The rest of the time? It was a job. A pretty good job, mostly, sometimes a very difficult job, and occasionally a very dangerous job. A job, not a calling, nonetheless.
And when I did go to war, it was for no noble cause. Not a bad cause, you understand, but not an especially good one either. It was because evil old men far away had decided that once again, it was time for young men and women to die. Like it usually is. 1914-1918 is barely within living memory now, but that lesson should stay with us always.
So, speaking for my fellow veterans: we gladly accept your thanks, and you're welcome. Speaking for myself: you're welcome, but please always try to remember what you're thanking us for.
(x-posted to
danielmedic)-
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thoughtful
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angry