Veterans’ Day

From 2014;

This year, like every year, I posted my portrait as a young platoon sergeant to my Facebook avatar, not as a way to attract the inevitable “thanks for your service” comments or even the flirts that I get (obviously from blind women). No, I posted it because I’m proud that I had an opportunity to serve my country. I never did anything heroic, nor do I claim that service in itself makes me a hero. But, those two decades of service has had a huge impact on my life and the lives of my family.

Another reason I do it is because my military antecedents of the Vietnam generation weren’t encouraged to discuss or advertise their service. When they came home from their war, they took off their uniforms and their service remained in the duffel bags in a dark corner of their basements. Even the soldiers who fought in wars before them didn’t respect their service. The Korean War veterans experienced the same treatment from the World War II generation when that war was fought to a draw.

Somehow, that black scar across the landscape on the National Mall etched with 58,000 names changed that. I won’t try to explain the phenomenon, I’ll just recognize that was the turning point for Americans’ appreciation for military service. Now, I can be publicly proud of my service because of the sacrifice that Vietnam veterans made, the sacrifice that came after they returned from war.

The pendulum has swung all the way back to the other extreme, now people who never served want to strap on a uniform and tell wild tales about wars in which they never really served. Our Stolen Valor page is chocked full of them. I guess we should feel better that everyone wants to be like us, but trust me, we don’t.

The appreciation that Americans have for their military has even prompted the people who haven’t served to denigrate our service in an attempt to elevate their own station in life by attempting to drag our reputations down to their level. They even make it attractive for veterans to come out this time of year and write articles about how they don’t think they should be thanked for their service. We have a word for that, now – it’s called being a Blue Falcon.

I’ll admit that I’m a little embarrassed every time someone thanks me for my service, because being in the military was the best times of my life, and I’m embarrassed that someone thinks that I need to be thanked for the privilege of getting paid for being the best asshole I could be.

But, I know the feeling that I got the first time I went to downtown DC on Veterans’ Day and, encountering a lone Vietnam veteran hanging out on the periphery of the activities, I reached out my hand and said “Welcome Home”, he shook my hand and then quickly brushed away a tear, embarrassed by his own emotional reaction to those two simple words.

Maybe that’s what we all want – instead of the thanks, the martial pageantry, the placards, the cheers – maybe we just want to feel welcomed back here in our home.

My special thanks to all of the Vietnam veterans who made sure that we didn’t have to wait two decades to feel welcomed.

I remember when Veterans’ Day was just another day off from work…well for everyone except veterans. My first Veterans’ Day after I left the military, in 1993, (I was actually on terminal leave at the time) was spent working as a security guard on a construction site…I was working full time while I attended college full time. I happened to pick up a newspaper on the way to work and it contained a column by the late Mike Royko on veterans and I always remembered his sage words.

Royko was a Chicago reporter and another famous Chicagoan, Matt Burden (Blackfive) remembers Royko’s column.

I just phoned six friends and asked them what they will be doing on Monday.

They all said the same thing: working.

Me, too.

There is something else we share. We are all military veterans.

And there is a third thing we have in common. We are not employees of the federal government, state government, county government, municipal government, the Postal Service, the courts, banks, or S & Ls, and we don’t teach school.

If we did, we would be among the many millions of people who will spend Monday goofing off.

Which is why it is about time Congress revised the ridiculous terms of Veterans Day as a national holiday.

The purpose of Veterans Day is to honor all veterans.

So how does this country honor them?

By letting the veterans, the majority of whom work in the private sector, spend the day at their jobs so they can pay taxes that permit millions of non-veterans to get paid for doing nothing.

As my friend Harry put it:

“First I went through basic training. Then infantry school. Then I got on a crowded, stinking troop ship that took 23 days to get from San Francisco to Japan. We went through a storm that had 90 percent of the guys on the ship throwing up for a week.

“Then I rode a beat-up transport plane from Japan to Korea, and it almost went down in the drink. I think the pilot was drunk.

“When I got to Korea, I was lucky. The war ended seven months after I got there, and I didn’t kill anybody and nobody killed me.

“But it was still a miserable experience. Then when my tour was over, I got on another troop ship and it took 21 stinking days to cross the Pacific.

“When I got home on leave, one of the older guys at the neighborhood bar — he was a World War II vet — told me I was a —-head because we didn’t win, we only got a tie.

“So now on Veterans Day I get up in the morning and go down to the office and work.

“You know what my nephew does? He sleeps in. That’s because he works for the state.

“And do you know what he did during the Vietnam War? He ducked the draft by getting a job teaching at an inner-city school.

“Now, is that a raw deal or what?”

Of course that’s a raw deal. So I propose that the members of Congress revise Veterans Day to provide the following:

– All veterans — and only veterans — should have the day off from work. It doesn’t matter if they were combat heroes or stateside clerk-typists.

Anybody who went through basic training and was awakened before dawn by a red-neck drill sergeant who bellowed: “Drop your whatsis and grab your socks and fall out on the road,” is entitled.

– Those veterans who wish to march in parades, make speeches or listen to speeches can do so. But for those who don’t, all local gambling laws should be suspended for the day to permit vets to gather in taverns, pull a couple of tables together and spend the day playing poker, blackjack, craps, drinking and telling lewd lies about lewd experiences with lewd women. All bar prices should be rolled back to enlisted men’s club prices, Officers can pay the going rate, the stiffs.

– All anti-smoking laws will be suspended for Veterans Day. The same hold for all misdemeanor laws pertaining to disorderly conduct, non-felonious brawling, leering, gawking and any other gross and disgusting public behavior that does not harm another individual.

– It will be a treasonable offense for any spouse or live-in girlfriend (or boyfriend, if it applies) to utter the dreaded words: “What time will you be home tonight?”

– Anyone caught posing as a veteran will be required to eat a triple portion of chipped beef on toast, with Spam on the side, and spend the day watching a chaplain present a color-slide presentation on the horrors of VD.

– Regardless of how high his office, no politician who had the opportunity to serve in the military, but didn’t, will be allowed to make a patriotic speech, appear on TV, or poke his nose out of his office for the entire day.

Any politician who defies this ban will be required to spend 12 hours wearing headphones and listening to tapes of President Clinton explaining his deferments.

Now, deal the cards and pass the tequila.

– Mike Royko

I’d add that no one should be able to say “Happy Veterans’ Day” like it’s Christmas or Easter. I hope you have a Thoughtful Veterans’ Day…and by the way, that free Grand Slam at Denny’s makes up for all of those C-Rat Spaghetti and Meatball breakfasts I choked down. I hope you go get yours…you deserve it.

Category: Veterans Issues