Tag: Veterans Day

100 years and counting

Ever had too many ideas at once and not know where to start? That’s a pretty odd thing to freeze you up, but it happens. So I spent some time looking through Facebook memories for today and came across this photo.

It’s from a deployment patch ceremony that my Transition Team held on 11 November, 2009. This might seem pretty straight forward and subdued, however the more I looked at the photo the odder it became. After being in a combat zone for 30 days you’re authorized to wear a combat patch, it’s the one on your right shoulder (the left shoulder is your current unit). By 2009 it was strange to see someone who’d been in for a few years without a patch on their right shoulder. It made a person stand out in a bad way. I was happy to get mine.

Of course by November 11th we’d been deployed for 62 days. So why the delay? Well our team leader was a major who was just getting his first deployment. He’d been in for over 10 years without deploying. Transition Teams were a solid concept that has continued to evolve into the Security Force Advisor Brigade. They were also a great way for Human Resources Command to identify individuals who hadn’t yet deployed and place them on deployments. So as a team of 11 dudes living remotely our team leader made the call that we’d not wear the combat patch from this deployment until we had a ceremony on Veterans Day.

The military has made an art form out of taking the mundane and making it special. The simple becomes complex as soon as someone with enough rank decides it’d be a good idea. The Good Idea Fairy struck on this occasion.

This kind of ceremony isn’t typical. Usually people just hit 30 days and slap that patch on. Making such a big deal out of earning our deployment patches reeked of POG. I don’t think a single person on our team really cared that much about it, but sometimes only one person’s opinion matters. Sometimes you’re just a monkey being told to dance, so dance!

What do you do when the Good Idea Fairy pays you a visit? Make jokes. Humor is the only way to deal with these things. Realizing that GIF wasn’t putting our asses in danger made this easier to deal with – a minor inconvenience. The way this ceremony went, as much as I can remember, the team leader had some brief remarks to the team about being proud to be leading us in this important mission and to reflect on Veterans Day. Then the 11 of us paired up and slapped brand new 17th Fires Brigade patches on each others’ right shoulders.

So SSG Harvey and I decided to pair up. Standing 6’8” to my 5’4” we made an odd couple. Our roles on the team had us working together most of the time. Harv was our logistics NCO, and also the guy with the most deployments on our team (4 I think) even though he was the most junior ranking. Harv was a guy you’d look at and immediately pin as the heartbeat of a team. Dude was always smiling and taking a positive outlook on things. He was quick to pick you up and notice when something was off. He had more relevant experience in Iraq than nearly the other 10 of us combined. Let that sink in.

I was successful in Korea and at Fort Hood because I had great NCOs to learn from and to count on. Any officer who would say that they were successful solely because of their own skills is full of shit. What success I found in Iraq usually stemmed from Harv. We worked well together, respected each other, and we simply clicked. Unfortunately we lost contact following the deployment. That still bothers me today.

This was certainly an odd way to mark Veterans Day. It also made the day more meaningful. Being able to share it with our small team in such an intimate way flew in the face of the normal Big Army experience. A year later I was sitting on my couch in Temple, TX snapping pictures of our golden retriever Eisenhower.

There are many ways to mark this day. My friend Phil will say that Veterans Day is best when it’s ignored – a cynical outlook but one I understand. The over the top Patriotic Correctness of the NFL, chicken hawk politicians, and any number of chain restaurants make some of us sick to our stomachs. The Entitled Veteran walking around with a list of places to hit up for Vet Day discounts make the anger sharks swarm. These are pretty extreme examples, ones that have equivalent opposites.

If you’re asking me, the best way to mark Veterans Day is to reach across the civil/military divide and put effort into understanding someone else’s experience. That’s equally true for both sides of that divide. It’s great to have a day off work, to get a free beer, or to say ‘thank you’. Don’t forget to spend some time thinking about what this day is for though. We are marking the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, the end of World War I. The War to End All Wars it was not. Maybe the best use of Veterans Day is to spend some time thinking about why that is.

Until we meet again.

On hero worship

What did you do today? I filled the bird feeders in my backyard, put out corn for the squirrels, took a long ride with my dog Rayzor in which we split some 5 Guys, picked up a few rolls of film that yielded some really nice photos, and now I’m writing to you, True Believer. Later tonight, I’m going to watch my beloved Fighting Irish put a whopping on Miami (hopefully). A fairly solid day in my book. A little Bob Ross-ness, some time for reflection, and some time for sport.

Oh yeah, Happy Veterans Day. Or Remembrance Day for my neighbours to the north. I didn’t want to write a typical ‘from a veteran’ post today, and I also didn’t want to be over the top non-conformist. I put a lot of thought into what I would write to you all today and still couldn’t come up with anything that struck me as a great insight. Sometimes you can’t force it, so accept that and go with what you’ve got. What I want to share with you is that even on days of true reverence like today we need to still be us.

If we Americans are good at anything, it’s going overboard. We see it on TV, in social media, and in our every day conversations. I am grateful that veterans are respected and held in high regard in the US. Certainly there have been times where this was not the case, although usually at the hands of fellow veterans but that’s a topic for another day. I know that every November 11th I am going to be wished well and thanked, and this year I was even lucky enough to be given a ticket to a suite at last night’s Buffalo Sabres game (thanks Veins Veins Veins!) Such gestures are great reminders that while most people likely do not understand what I did, they really are thankful and genuinely care. That means a lot.

I can also count on being in some uncomfortable situations. At a certain point we hit the saturation point and the gestures take on a tone of thoughtless hero worship. It’s an elephant in the room, we all know when this stuff starts going overboard, but we don’t talk about it. It’s as if to step back and think about how appropriate our words and actions are would be disrespectful. One of the great taboos of our time is to disrespect, or even just appear to disrespect, a veteran (see 2017 NFL season). Fear of violating this sacred rule has caused a damaging shift. We’ve gone to such lengths to respect our military that we’ve stopped to question anything. Those who did not serve dare not ask why something is being done or the wisdom of said hypothetical action (lets say allowing combat operations to continue and expand without even discussing another Authorization of Use of Military Force). Even those who did serve are ostracized if they do not toe the line. Think of the governor-elect of Virginia, a doctor who served in Desert Storm. This man being a Democrat was called out as weak on military/veteran issues by his opposition because he dared disagree. This is the point we have reached in our political discourse, schoolyard name calling, and it’s getting people fucking killed.

Now, not all of that is because of the aforementioned taboo. This is a part of our civil/military divide. It is a result of a smaller percentage of the citizenry having served or having a direct relative who served. It is a result of military service becoming a family business, of the country’s national security burden falling on fewer and fewer people with each passing generation. Again, I’m not here pointing fingers. I’m here shouting that we need to just recognize this issue, create a broad dialogue about it, and take some action to close that gap. Demographically and statistically speaking, the trend of a smaller percentage of the population serving is logically going to continue. America’s population will continue to grow faster than our military grows. That part is simple math. That does not abdicate us as well informed citizens from finding alternatives.

This blog is in part an effort to raise these questions, to let non-veterans know that we know, and that it’s OK. What do most veterans really want and need from the non-veteran population? We need you to show you care by being well informed about national security. We need you to give a shit about how your tax dollars are spent and to question the defense budget (see F-35). We need you to recognize that national security starts with a strong economy and a sustainable, predictable Federal budget (truth be told that applies to the veteran population too).

Mostly, we want you all to just treat us like Americans. We are all part of this nation, we need to act as a real community rather than self segregating into our familiar bubbles and social circles (this again is on the veterans too). Over the course of the last few years I’ve found that many non-veterans understand many of these things. Where things often fall apart is in initiating that conversation. Trust me, I know that problem all too well. It’s why I usually went home alone in college. In the interest of correcting this, please take this post, and the blog in general, as my invitation to talk. If you’re still struggling to think of some specific questions then read this article from War on the Rocks. I’d encourage you to regularly read their stuff, it’s all well done and from people with real credentials.

So as we wind down Veterans Day 2017 please remember to take time to do your normal stuff, like hitting the driving range (the photo above is from my time in Korea, February 2008 I think). Thank you all for paying your respects and for paying your taxes. Remember, we are all in this grand American experiment together.

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