Veteran's Day
Nov. 11th, 2004 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabidsamfanTechnically, I'm a veteran. Technically.
I served in the Air National Guard for seventeen years, until the downsizing of the military and my asthma combined to make an early out. But I never saw worse than war games. The closest I came to really serving my state was in a blizzard -- the same "Perfect Storm" as the book and movie -- and the closest I came to dying for my country was in the first Gulf War, when my unit was a week away from deployment until Saddam Hussein pretended to lose, and saved his time and effort for killing the Marsh Arabs and Kurds inside his own country instead of the Kuwaitis.
I've been through basic, and tech school. I've done the obstacle course and by some fluke shot expert on the firing range. I've saluted officers and painted things that didn't really need painting again. I've spent my summer training on bases in the US and I've been deployed overseas. I've worn chemical gear for hours on end, and tried to function through a gas mask and rubber gloves. I've sat up late at night with guys who had really been in combat, listening as exhaustion and beer loosened their tongues and braggadocio turned to solemn remembrance.
I've read histories, and diaries, and letters, and poems, and cartoons. I've sung the songs.
But it's like peeking through a gap in a fence, trying to understand an elephant from a glimpsed expanse of gray wrinkled skin.
Today is a day to remember. To honor. To regret. To polish our image of the brave and honorable soldier without ever forgetting that war can corrupt and twist a person caught up in it into someone whom they no longer recognize in a mirror. To seek to find ways to support the people fighting a war without blindly accepting the reasoning of the people who started it.
To recall that there are many survivors of old wars, who can use our help.
For Veterans Day, do this -- take out your calendar and set aside a few hours each month -- a few hours to visit a hospital, stand on a soup line, write your legislator, read up about how benefits are applied, and how they're meant to be applied. Search Google for ways to help the folks who are caught in wars today. Our prayers they always have, but what tangible needs are there? Food? Clean socks?
Whether they were on the winning side or not. Whether history has dealt with their causes kindly or with scorn, the veterans of the world are people, and for the most part they served as best they could.
Remember.
I served in the Air National Guard for seventeen years, until the downsizing of the military and my asthma combined to make an early out. But I never saw worse than war games. The closest I came to really serving my state was in a blizzard -- the same "Perfect Storm" as the book and movie -- and the closest I came to dying for my country was in the first Gulf War, when my unit was a week away from deployment until Saddam Hussein pretended to lose, and saved his time and effort for killing the Marsh Arabs and Kurds inside his own country instead of the Kuwaitis.
I've been through basic, and tech school. I've done the obstacle course and by some fluke shot expert on the firing range. I've saluted officers and painted things that didn't really need painting again. I've spent my summer training on bases in the US and I've been deployed overseas. I've worn chemical gear for hours on end, and tried to function through a gas mask and rubber gloves. I've sat up late at night with guys who had really been in combat, listening as exhaustion and beer loosened their tongues and braggadocio turned to solemn remembrance.
I've read histories, and diaries, and letters, and poems, and cartoons. I've sung the songs.
But it's like peeking through a gap in a fence, trying to understand an elephant from a glimpsed expanse of gray wrinkled skin.
Today is a day to remember. To honor. To regret. To polish our image of the brave and honorable soldier without ever forgetting that war can corrupt and twist a person caught up in it into someone whom they no longer recognize in a mirror. To seek to find ways to support the people fighting a war without blindly accepting the reasoning of the people who started it.
To recall that there are many survivors of old wars, who can use our help.
For Veterans Day, do this -- take out your calendar and set aside a few hours each month -- a few hours to visit a hospital, stand on a soup line, write your legislator, read up about how benefits are applied, and how they're meant to be applied. Search Google for ways to help the folks who are caught in wars today. Our prayers they always have, but what tangible needs are there? Food? Clean socks?
Whether they were on the winning side or not. Whether history has dealt with their causes kindly or with scorn, the veterans of the world are people, and for the most part they served as best they could.
Remember.
