I’m not one for holidays, to be honest. It’s not that I am anti-Holiday. It’s just they don’t mean much to me. Most of the time they sneak up on me- “Oh, shit, it’s Halloween, need to go to the store and get candy for the little germy bastards.” I’m the guy always googling how to defrost a turkey in 2 hours. Point being, I don’t EVER remember it’s Veterans day or the other one whose name escapes me at the moment until after messages show up in my FB timeline thanking me for my service or people text me something similar.
“THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE!” I know it is well-meaning, but it makes me feel very uncomfortable. Usually I just reply “thanks” and move on or if I am feeling like a smartass it’s “Thanks for paying for college!” It’s weird, though. I don’t know why I feel that way. I don’t know why people feel compelled to thank me or other vets. In my case, just don’t.
I didn’t join the military because I was overly patriotic (I’m far more patriotic now, which is why I get so mad when I see us doing evil and stupid stuff), or because I wanted to serve, or because there was a war going on, or because my family had a history of service, or any of that. I joined because I was 19, in college when I shouldn’t be, all I was doing was partying and going to concerts and playing lacrosse, and I needed a change. I needed something different. I needed out of where I was. And the Army gave me that opportunity.
So I joined. Everyone was shocked. Very few people knew I was even thinking about it. I just went, talked to the recruiter, quietly jumped through all the hoops, and signed on the dotted line. Had a big party at the fraternity house a week before I left, everyone got rip-roaring drunk and they shaved my head, and it was off to Fort Knox.
And it turned out to be a good experience for me. I traveled, got stationed in Europe and a brief stint in the middle east, and saw a lot of things I otherwise would never have. I learned a lot of self confidence, I learned to walk taller (people thought I grew four inches in the army, when I actually just stopped slouching), I met a lot of lifelong friends, and I learned to judge character. I met a lot of black and latino people, something that I had never been exposed to before in lily white WV. I also learned that leadership is not about your rank, but about your character. Everyone who has ever served in the military that there were great senior NCO’s and Officers, but every platoon has that corporal or pfc or buck sergeant who is the actual glue of the unit.
I learned a lot about bureacracy, and I learned a lot about just shutting up and doing your job when you had to and also learning that if you have a good reason, questioning authority isn’t a bad thing, but sometimes how you do it is as important as bringing it up in the first place. It was a good, positive experience for me.
I mentioned I met a lot of and learned about lifelong friends. I have friends on FB from the military who say things routinely that would horrify you. Things that I would want to punch people for. I’m sure they feel the same way about shit I say. But I still love them. I still talk to my CO almost every day.
I also learned that the public has a very little idea what the military is like. You hear things like “join the military and grow up” all the time, which is funny, because the military in the peacetime army is really one of the most safe spaces in the world. Not matter how bad you fuck up, you will still have clothes, medical care, three hots and a cot, and survive. You can blow every single penny on payday gambling, and you will be fine. You might piss off your squad mates bumming smokes, but you’ll make it.
And while you may experience some new stuff, like I did, it’s very easy for you to become an extremely insular thinker, where everything is framed of terms of us versus them. That’s why so many military men gravitate to law enforcement, and why so many law enforcement officers think it’s us versus the people.
Some things stick with you for a long time after the military. Little things others might not think about. I can’t sit in a restaurant unless my back is against a wall and I can see the door and windows. I really enjoyed the freedom that military uniforms offered you- you simply do not have to waste any time thinking about what you were wearing ever. I have a “uniform” today. I basically wear the same outfit every day- I buy a dozen t’s, two-three pairs of cargo shorts, some boxers, and a new pair of Merrell’s every spring and I am good until November when the winter uniform gets broken out. It’s easier and you don’t have to think about it. And I don’t have to look at myself.
It can make you more authoritarian. That took me a number of years to shake. But it can also make you realize that nothing gets done without a team, which is why I get so mad at third party voters and special snowflakes who just have to be individuals. There’s a time for individuality. In the barracks after work is done. Once you’ve been given the op order and you’re rolling down the road is not the time to explore other options because it might be better.
I also learned that every person in the unit can contribute something in some way, and the good leaders figure out who can do what and then lets them.
I’m rambling. Happy Veteran’s Day.
Oh, and that picture is of me being hogtied by my platoon mates on my 21st birthday at Camp Doha in Kuwait. I know who everyone in that picture is even though there faces are not showing. Funny that. I could probably still pick them all out in the pitch black just by the sound they make walking and their dark nearly invisible profile.
Doug!
Great post, John. It reminds me a lot of a speech I saw Wes Clark give a few years ago.
WereBear
Thank you for this post :)
ThresherK (GPad)
You might read Paul Lukas’ Uni-watch blog for a but of corrective. Lukas is very forthright in his views on the compulsive patriotica trappings of sports and the military.
Big Ole Hound
My story exactly. Joined the Navy in 1961 after one year of hell raising and football in college. Four years later, after being in the the Gulf of Tonkin for the Vietnam war and meeting men who were different than me I was discharged a far better person with life long friends. It was a perfect expierence for me at the time.
Tom
Enjoy the day.
debit
Close your italics tag, babe.
JPL
Thanks John for the great post.
Poopyman
Zounds! We’re all italicized!
How about now?
Well shit a (/em) doesn’t fix it.
Phil Smith
Thanks John
Slugger
May your further travels along life’s paths continue your growth. No one’s life is a straight line, and the surprise diversions make us better. You did choose the path less traveled by, and it has made all the difference.
Poopyman
FWIW, it makes me feel uncomfortable too, because it’s so proforma and wooden. And really just drives home the point that I know nothing about their service; what drove them to enlist, what great times they had, what hells they went through.
So mostly I don’t outwardly acknowledge it. But I do try to make sure veterans are taken care of after they’re out, and that’s becoming harder and harder as more veterans come out damaged, visibly or not.
Neutron Flux
Exactly. Thanks.
TaMara (HFG)
Thank you for this great read. I always call my dad on veterans’ day and grateful I can. I thank him because his service was also my service – I got to travel around the States, I met all kinds of people, I had to be fast on my feet because I was the new kid every two years, and rarely in a military community (we were usually stationed at small radar bases). I can read the people in a room before anyone even speaks.
My life is so different than if I had grown up in small town midwest or even small town east coast. My dad was in Vietnam for a year when I was 5, and it colors everything I think about service, war and politics. So I thank him for that experience – and to make up for what must have been horrible experiences having to tell me we were moving again – I never made those conversations easy.
TaMara (HFG)
Ok, I went in and checked and I can’t see anything that triggered the italics spreading throughout the post. Someone call Alain, stat.
ETA: and now it’s fixed. Alain ignore my email.
Humboldtblue
I can’t stand Veteran’s Day primarily because it used to be Armistice day but considering this nation has been in armed conflict on a continuous of some sort since 1905 or so we sure as shit have generated a lot of Vets.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is a respected man and he has a message for you look-down-your-nose-at-the-stupid-white-people-who-voted-for-Trump. It’s your fucking fault you elitist fucks. You hate their religions, you mock their sacred ideas and ideals and you’re the fucking monsters in this equation because you’re all top income earners and you need to desperately reach out to these voters to assure them it was your fault that they were misled about meritocracy and a chance to live the American dream. Until then, all the vets will have died in vain, Jesus will weep and I am pretty fucking sure that a goddamn blogger ethics panel is scheduled for mid-December that all you goddamn hateful fuckers will have to attend.
May I just add that Rabbi Micheal Lerner can go fuck himself with a phylactery.
Schlemazel
Fuck it, I am not thanking you dammit! You volunteered & I never asked you to join asshole.
There, is that better, John?
celticdragonchick
Thanks for the share, John.
One of my best memories of the Army was me and another private trying sneak up on and tackle this big staff sergeant while we out on morning police call picking up trash around Camp Mobile in Korea. The sergeant was this huge African American guy, really ripped muscles..and he caught both of us as we jumped on him. Next thing, he had me and the other private under each arm off the ground (and I probably weighed 210 at the time) and walked around with a huge grin yelling “I caught me two privates!”
It was funny as hell, and honest to God, that sergeant could turn a shit sandwich assignment into something palatable.
I really do miss the camaraderie.
JPL
@Humboldtblue: Eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
BC in Illinois
Navy Hospital Corpsman here (HM2) 1969 – 73. Never left the states. Spent my time in the service defending Bethesda, Maryland. Two items.
What I learned from time in the barracks was that there is as much diversity and disagreement among servicemen as among anybody else. The idea that all veterans are all anything is absurd.
Second, I see Sen. Cotton yearning for the return of torture. “Donald Trump’s a pretty tough guy, and I think he’s ready to make those tough calls.” In their minds, if you’re not tough, then of course you don’t torture. But really tough people know you have to torture folks sometime.
The last time we had an administration with a policy of torture, it divided people. Some refused, some pushed back, some went along. (The FBI was, IIRC, against torture.) Trump has said that he will be fine with re-instituting torture. Water torture? “Absolutely.” And “something beyond waterboarding.” He has said that the people in the service won’t disobey his orders, even if unlawful, because he’s a leader and that’s what leadership is all about.
This is what he says in public. The next day, a statement is issued to say that, of course, he would never order anything illegal. The test of leadership will be seen in the next four years. Trump has never–since he days as a toddler–had anyone tell him no. He has never been under anyone’s authority. He has never been in an organization where someone else had the final word. Hell, I don’t know if he has ever been on a committee!
He ran for president, but he pictures himself as the Leader. (The German word for “leader” . . . )
Scott
I’m retired AF and I agree with you. The whole thank you for this service business is just tiresome. It has become marketing not based in any kind of sincerity. I also think it has gotten to many veterans heads. There is no interest group feeling more entitled than the veteran. Government at all levels seem to shower benefits on them from car registrations to college benefits for their children. And discounts everywhere. Sure I take them but can’t say I’m grateful.
BTW, is there no greater contradiction to a person who calls themselves a Tea Party veteran?
Humboldtblue
@JPL:
Indeed. In Flanders Fields, read by Leonard Cohen.
geg6
My dad and my uncles, all of whom served honorably and one with great bravery and distinction in WWII, were not fans of Veterans Day. They observed Memorial Day in honor of their fallen friends, but they found the whole thing unseemly, this fetishizing of veterans. They always just said they did what they had to do and didn’t deserve any gratuitous kudos.
Regardless, I am thankful that there are those who choose to serve.
Eljai
@Humboldtblue: It’s one thing to be civil to one another and to listen. I’m all for compassion. But I’ve been reading several religious, spiritual types telling me we all need to unify as a country and, quite frankly, I feel like they have their heads up their asses. Maybe Rabbi Lerner should reach out to Trump voters by trying to enlighten them on the evils of authoritarianism.
laura
John -and any other veteran, can you offer an opinion on this;
We have very, very few rites of passage to manhood in our American culture and military service seems to be one that has an almost universal good will about it. Does service impart a sense of transformation and emergence? Is it tangible? Are habits formed in daily routine retained because theyre good, or because they are routine?
Finally, does the unit cohesiveness and deep friendships follow in ways that open men to the wider world of we, or is it an inward focused us?
Jsinla
I joined to provide for my wife and son and get a skill that could translate to the civilian world. Spent 8+ years as a submarine reactor operator and trainer. Got out, and did translate those skills into a successful career.
Don’t thank me for my service, though I am proud of it and that of my father, uncles, and brothers. I joined for me, not for any larger purpose.
I honestly think that I never heard “thanks for your service” until the casualties started piling up in Iraq. I think the thought is just a tacit acknowledgment that “I chose not to go” and it makes folks feel better about that decision.
Dread
The day we used to remember how stupid, costly, and pointless war was, and now get 30% off of a new mattress…
Humboldtblue
@Eljai: No other article I have read in the past few days has incensed me more. The fucking false equivalency and the total disregard for the vitriol and hate that fuels these people and leaves minorities in fear for their lives and livelihoods means Lerner is a fucking quisling.
You Democrats dressed up in your slutty Halloween costumes and got raped. Dress more moderately you fucking whores.
Baud
I have no military connection. Knowing how I am now, I don’t think I would have had a positive experience like you did if I had served. Thanks for the post, John. Happy Veterans Day to all who celebrate it.
Kryptik
@Humboldtblue:
Meanwhile all the spontaneous xenophobic and racist demonstrations and attacks are just good holy Americans letting their valid opinions be known.
I’m sorry, but literal attacks against people telling them to get out of “our” country is a little more telling than insults against “closely held beliefs”
terraformer
Thanks for this post, John. It’s posts like this that I love the most about this site.
AndoChronic
John, thanks for mentioning this perspective. While I don’t have many of my military chums on my FB, due to the exact reason you mentioned, I still have some good military friends on there. Although, they too have been posting ridiculousness. I don’t have the heart to defriend them even though I put out a blanket statement for Trump voters to get off of my page. I feel the same way for them I suppose as I do for some of my family members who are doing the same thing who are still on my page. Happy Veterans Day to you anyways.
Eljai
@Humboldtblue: Exactly. And he needs to stop with the false portrayals of the Left. I’ve had it. Most of the liberals I know show more kindness to their conservative friends and neighbors than they receive in return. We listen, sure, and we try to persuade when we can. But I’m not going to tolerate ignorance. That’s what brought us to this point.
Feebog
It’s funny, but I get a certain sense of guilt on Veterans Day. I was drafted in late 1965. Did basic in Fort Polk, LA and then to Fort Belvoir VA for advanced training. Early on in the advanced training I severely broke my wrist. I was in a cast for 8 months, which kept me from shipping to Thailand (and then on to Viet Nam). I was accepted as an instructor (my grades during advanced were pretty damn good) anyway, so who knows. But I have plenty of friends who did their year in Nam and two classmates who did not make it back. Additionally, both my brothers volunteered and were over there. So yeah, when someone says thanks for your service, I know that there were many others who sacrificed a lot more than two years of their lives.
Cain
I’m uncomfortable telling John Cole thanks for his service too. But I gotta say it anyways because balloon-juice rocks! :) Thanks for balloon-juice, Cole!
As an aside, I hear that Ellison is on the list for DNC chair. I’m pissed, why does the Democratic party think that the role of DNC should be a half time position? Why can’t we have someone working full time? Frankly, I’m starting to feel really annoyed with the established apparatus in the Democratic party.
Omnes Omnibus
“Thank you for your service” has always grated on me. It seems like a pro forma statement empty of real meaning. Also, the people deify the military are idiots. “Oh, they are heroes who keep us safe.” Bullshit, they are bunch of individual humans – some of whom are great; some , meh; and others, awful. I learned a lot in the army, but I didn’t really enjoy it. I wasn’t great at what I did because I wasn’t really suited for it. I got out at the first opportunity I had. The army did not object.
Citizen_X
This morning a friend of mine posted “I joined just because I needed a job, but hey, you’re welcome.”
dance around in your bones
Well, most of they guys I knew who served did it under coercion – fuck the draft, man. My daughter said something about a package she sent me not being delivered until Monday because of the holiday, and I said what holiday? Didn’t even show up on my free Van Horn Oil and Propane calendar from Texass.
I told her about me and her dad stressing out big time when he got called up. He was NOT gonna get on THAT bus (straight to Nam in those days). He got a kind Quaker female shrink to write him a letter telling the draft board that he “had a problem with authority” and would not be a good choice. Surprisingly, they listened to that. And it’s true – he would’ve sucked as a soldier.
Some of the best folks I’ve worked with were ex-military, Organized, capable, no-nonsense. I respect that. But we got our traveling the world and meeting people and relating to them on our own. Respect for all.
Baud
@Cain: I agree about a full-time chair. Ellison is being pushed by Bernie, so I don’t think you can blame the Dem establishment for him being on the short list.
Mnemosyne
My nephew is still waiting for his report date for the Marines, and I am fucking terrified for him right now. I think the Marines will be really good for him, and he’s been training for it for at least two years, but now I want him to switch to the Coast Guard since there’s a much smaller chance he’ll be sent off to President Shitgibbon’s new war, wherever that ends up happening.
Another Holocene Human
You’re uncomfortable with “thank you for your service” because you should be. It’s fascist authoritarian worship of symbols. If they actually cared for military veterans they would be voting for pols who support the VA and military benefits and they would want to avoid any unnecessary wars that put military people in harm’s way.
Instead they worship the flag and the symbolism of the military and think it gives them a pass if they vote to go into an unnecessary war and people die.
They’re like the women in China who used to try to touch male opera singers who did female roles thinking it would enhance their fertility. They think thanking you for your service enhances their masculinity somehow.
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
Hey, you. There’s a character in the new Disney animated movie that I think was based on you. How did the animators find you?
;-)
Amy Wolf
John: You don’t know it but I have read you every day for years. My son is in college in ROTC and graduates in two years. I would love to be able to have an email conversation with you about the ramifications for him in the military at this fraught moment. I know he won’t listen to us but maybe you could be helpful to me. Thank you. Amy
Jim
I served in the U.S. Army from 1966 to 1969 (a year in Nam). I was not then nor am I now gung-ho. In fact, I hated the military in general and lifers in particular. But, I’ve always been grateful for some of the things the army did for me. In ways, it made me a man. Not that I think that rigid discipline is a tonic for society’s ills. I’ve never been impressed with the Job Corps and penitentiary boot camp theories, i.e. analogizing them to the WPA or Conservation Corps of the thirties. Much of what comes out of a program depends on what goes in. The FDR programs consisted of good, decent Americans who were victimized by the depression. These modern programs start with losers. Nevertheless, there are a lot of things I gained from my service. As the old saying goes, I wouldn’t take a million dollars for my service, but neither would I go through it again for a million dollars.
Another Holocene Human
My inlaws are Jewish and when the paterfamilias was alive they found out that if he wore a hat he picked up at Pearl Harbor random goyim would thank him for his service in a weepy voice (he served in the Navy in WWII). So he wore the hat and shook their hands. I think they got a real kick out of it.
CarolDuhart2
@Cain: Howard Dean is also running.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: Haha. Definitely.
Larkspur
My older brother enlisted in the marines when he graduated from high school in 1968. I don’t know how it happened, but he never served in-country in Vietnam. They spent some time teaching him about electronic stuff and then sent him to Japan to guard U.S. soldiers who were in the brig for various infractions.
I still worried about him, but he came home safe. I remember that before he went in, it was a nightmare riding in the car when he drove. He always clutched the wheel like he was going to snap it off, yelled at other drivers, and was basically dialed up to eleven all the time.
On his first leave after boot camp, he got behind the wheel, settled back in the seat, checked the seat belts, and drove like a grown-up, nice human being. Used his turn signals, cooperated in letting other drivers merge, performed perfectly at four-stop intersections. It’s like some kind of insecurity got burned out of him. He didn’t need that hyper-macho behavior any more.
I know his service was hard for him – he really experienced internal conflict about the Vietnam war. And it was hard over the years when our bombastic father would loudly exclaim over his son the “Vietnam veteran”; my brother eventually gave up trying to explain that it was important to say he was a “Vietnam-era veteran”.
Afterwards he got to go to college and became a tech guy, eventually getting his PhD. For him, it was a good thing. For me, it kept me grounded throughout the Vietnam war and in the following years. Even though he didn’t serve in-country, he was my brother and he was a marine. It was personal, you know?
Shalimar
@CarolDuhart2: Maybe if they give Dean the DNC chair again, he can quit his job lobbying along with Newt Gingrich for Iranian terrorists.
amygdala
Regarding the picture: did you get a safe word?
Thank you for… Balloon Juice.
Schlemazel
@Feebog:
Something that got lost between WWII and Viet Nam was the sense that not all service was equal. I have relatives who served in WWII & the ones who never saw combat were very clear that they did not deserve the recognition of those that did.
I remember the “Welcome Home” bullshit parade in Orlando in the early 90s supposedly to make up to Viet Nam vets for not getting one in the 70s. 2/3 of the guys in that parade were wearing green berets. I showed the picture to my kids & said “Thats why we lost in Viet Nam, everyone there was special forces and without supply Sargents they never could get food or ammunition.
Baud
@amygdala: Green balloons, of course.
HRA
Well, John, you have cleared up the questions I have had concerning some of the habits of my veteran husband of 34 years. I will thank you for this only.
Have a good day.
Humboldtblue
@Schlemazel:
Particularly when the “greatest generation” (fuck that term, it’s so fucking arrogant not to mention completely inaccurate) came back from WW2 looked at the million or so black men and women who served and said, “fuck you, get around back of the restaurant, stay out of our schools, don’t even fucking think about voting and get to the back of the bus.”
Not only was the service not equal the treatment of American citizens wasn’t equal either. So yeah, “thank you for your service” has always been bullshit.
patrick II
My cousin is a recently retired colonel who had been a member of the U.S. Army who has lived in an environment where everyone is fed, has health care, no one is left behind, where top officers are not paid 400 times what an e3 makes, and are taught teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. The military is the most socialistic institution in the U.S., and it is remarkably successful. And yet, having lived in that environment for thirty years, and being a very smart guy besides, he is a total libertarian wingnut, as if a society could work without rules and with each for man himself. It amazes me.
Also, athletes who spend their whole career talking about how they couldn’t do it themselves, teamwork is what counts, blah, blah, blah. And when some of them retire and run for office, it is nearly inevitably as a right wing republican. As if all of those things they said they learned about a team being able to accomplish more than an individual alone was all a facade, or something they can only apply to sports, but in the rest of life it is each man for himself. And while they have healthcare through whatever organization they were a member of, group national healthcare is socialistic and the citizens of our country are not a worthy group and therefore if you get sick, tough shit, go ahead and die, because fuck you, you’ve been invisible handed a death sentence.
Anyhow, some people don’t seem to be able to apply lessons learned to the broader issues facing our country.
rikyrah
Hey Cole.
HILFY
You are a good man, John Cole. Thank you for teaching me things I haven’t learned in the last 70 years.
Also need more Steve and dog pack pics to help me thru this gut-wrenching, heart-breaking time. Remodeling updates are also a great pleasure.
gratuitous
Why do folks feel the need to thank veterans for their service? I’ll take a stab at it: We live in a country whose national religion is redemptive violence. If you think snake handlers and poison drinkers are fanatical about demonstrations of faith, look at faith our country and its people put into the ability of violence to retrieve and redeem any situation.
The chief expression, the point of the violence spear, is our military. We spend $2 billion a day on it, when we can’t even house, feed or clothe our own citizens. The military and violence occupy center stage at practically all large gatherings in our country. The Star Spangled Banner has to be sung before every sporting event, usually with a color guard from some branch of the military. At baseball games, the seventh inning stretch often features another homage to the military and violence. Military flyovers are common, and many sports teams have a “camo” version of their home uniforms to be sure the citizens don’t forget our national religion.
Is it any wonder given this constant indoctrination and compulsory liturgy that citizens are as reflexive at thanking veterans as the most devout Catholic is about crossing himself?
Patricia Kayden
@Humboldtblue: Perhaps Rabbi Lerner should focus on the spike in racist incidents directly attributable to Trump’s election instead of the poor, downtrodden White men who voted for the unqualified Bigot.
Doug R
@Humboldtblue: I got a couple of paragraphs into Lerners piece and I’m thinking he misses the entire point.
Trump won with HIGHER INCOME voters.
Trump won ALL White demos.
It’s not “rich elite liberals” that talked down, it’s white priveledged assholes who don’t want to pay their fair share and who fear the lie that they are superior.
Mnemosyne
@laura:
I am not a veteran, but some of us were talking a few months ago about possible ways to still get some of the benefits of military service (like discipline, learning a trade, physical challenges, etc.) in a civilian way. My initial thought was re-creating the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and sending a bunch of 18-year-olds out into the woods to fight fires, repair trails in remote locations, etc., but there are probably other ideas, too.
I have four older brothers, so I know that young men are always going to be looking for ways to challenge themselves and live on the edge, plus there are a lot of young women who want that, too. Let’s give them some additional ways to do it constructively.
patrick II
“Thank you for your service”.
Here’s a tip, next time don’t vote for one of those sociopaths who send people like me to unnecessary wars and skip the “Thank you”. It’s not worth it.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne:
Hey you, back! Last movie character I was compared to was Linda Hamilton in The Terminator….something about hairstyle and muscles; made me happy! So I’ll take Gramma Tala nowadays – prolly more apropos in my elderly gramma mode :)
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m the village crazy lady. That’s my job.”
The whole movie is good, too. Shameless plug: opens 11/23! Go see it so I can get a bonus next year!
Alain the site fixer
What a great piece.
Patricia Kayden
For those of you who are on Twitter, please be careful. New Nazi trolls are urging liberals to commit suicide. Sigh.
Eric U.
“thank you for your service” always seems to be delivered in a terse, pro forma way that implies a “… but …”
agorabum
“Thank you for your service” is a cop out to actually making sure the rest of society at least shares in some of the burden. Which is why it arose during the Bush years of tax cuts and unnecessary wars.
I see Veterans day more in the spirit of Europe and their response to WW1 – a day to mourn and remember the lost.
Lee Hartmann
Thank you for writing this.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne:
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Is there something you want to hear?”
I love that ;)
Omnes Omnibus
@agorabum: The Green Fields of France
raven
@Jim: Same time frame as me. I went in on my 17th birthday, 50 years ago yesterday. I was too young for the Nam so they sent me to Korea. I came home to Lewis and couldn’t take the lifer horseshit so I found a way into a unit going to Nam, one of the last to ship as a unit. In ways it did shape me I hated the fucking Army and the war but made some great friends.I was a truck driver in both stations, the classic remf. One thing that impacted me was how the undereducated got fucked behind the draft with “Project 100,000”.
raven
@agorabum: No, that is Memorial Day. Veterans day is for the living.
amygdala
@Baud: I’ll never look at those meetup pictures with the green balloons in quite the same way, going forward.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne: For years I have talked up my idea of a year off before college(if one is so lucky to go) devoted to travel around the world. Nothing opened my eyes more than getting out of the USofA and seeing the Rest Of The World. Seriously. I still remember vividly sitting on a bed in a hotel room talking with kids from Brussels, A’dam, France, etc and feeling like the most hick-from-the-sticks ABQ girl (I was all of 16yrs old). Different viewpoints! Non-USA-centric! What a mindblow. And that was just the first few days….
Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)
@laura: “Manhood”? Not all veterans are male. Female veterans are pretty much invisible, and that is a huge problem.
As for this post, everything you said, Cole. Everything.
I also think being in the military can help develop a sixth sense of when something is not right, or when potential danger is near. It can help you prepare a plan, just in case. I’ll be using that sense in the times ahead.
To my brothers and sister in arms, stay safe out there.
Mike R
I remember project 10000, if you could see lightning and hear thunder you were good to go. Fuck LBJ, just found out that I am a winner in the agent orange lottery, happy veterans day indeed.
Mobile
I hate it when someone thanks me for my service. My response is almost always the same depending on my mood. I normally sneer and say “Don’t thank me, I was drafted.” Sorry it is one of those times I find it difficult to be civil. My heroes have always been the kids at Kent State and the boys who burned their draft cards. I figure I would have demonstrated more bravery going to Canada and giving up my comfortable life in the states. I despise all those right wing jingo blowhards at the VFW. On the other hand I do honor Memorial Day and the vets who fought and died even if the wars they fought in were pointless and evil.
Mike R
@Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire): So very true, my wife retired from the National Guard with 6 years active duty, she’s a better “man” than I.
NeutronFlux
@Schlemazel: Perfect
WaterGirl
BooMan, this morning. Well worth reading.
A New Resistance Will Arise
by BooMan
Fri Nov 11th, 2016 at 11:53:19 AM EST
Linnaeus
Think of it as Armistice Day, if it helps.
Dulce et decorum est.
Mobile
@Mike R: Oh, no. I am so sorry. Fuck that stupid war. Shit. I am tearing up. Just shit.
NeutronFlux
@@Jsinla: Another Nuke. Welcome.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike R: Fuck. I am truly sorry.
Mike R
@Mobile: Thanks, any good thoughts help. Yeah the whole thing sucked. Please any veterans and anybody for that matter keep up on the physicals and don’t blow off any warnings. My wife and doctored wouldn’t let me blow anything off so it appears it was caught very early. We need all the good guys for the days ahead.
Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)
@Mike R: Fuck. I am so sorry. I think my dad might be a winner in that same lottery, too. It might have had something to do with his PSA. They found a few abnormal cells when they removed his prostate in Feb. He’s doing much better now, but has to be screened every six months.
Please, if you need any support, help, or just someone to bitch to, feel free….I’m here, and so are others.
Unfortunately, all the Iraq/A-Stan vets get to worry about burn pit issues. It seems we haven’t learned anything from Vietnam.
Felanius Kootea
Well, thank you so much for this site (your other service). I’ve been a reader and mostly lurker since you were a Republican and I decided that you were a reasonable person who could help me understand conservative views. Then you became a Democrat. Perhaps I should have tried to stomach Michelle Malkin :).
I have had very little sleep in the last few days so I’m going to try to get some today. Thanks again for the site – it has been an amazing place for a liberal Nigerian immigrant trying to figure out the US. I’ve lived here almost 30 years and soaked up US history but still learn something new every day.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mike R: Fuck. I am so sorry.
Villago Delenda Est
This. Right here. In my case, it was not only my questioning of authority, it was my subordinate’s questioning of my authority and how they did it that taught me a great deal about how leadership is supposed to work. I had a terrific platoon sergeant who taught me a great deal about this, but I also had some E-5s and E-6s who taught me a whole lot too.
What hit me was I spent a year as a platoon leader in a signal battalion, then was transferred to an infantry battalion for the signal officer staff job there. I came back to the old unit to visit, and a soldier who had joined my old platoon after I left recognized my name because my troops talked about me and turned me into something of a legend…all because I twisted a knee out helping get a generator trailer that was stuck in mud moved. The story had warped into “erected a TRC-145 antenna by himself” somehow. I think it had more to do with how I was an LT who could read a map, who listened to and followed up on suggestions, and in general did all I could to make my soldiers’ lives a bit better both in garrison and the field.
Or my successor did a poor job of filling my boots, I dunno. All I can tell you is I learned a hell of a lot about how things work while I served, things I didn’t have that great a grasp of when I was in college, but at least an inkling. My attitudes about race were heavily influenced by serving side by side with people you often don’t run into much in Oregon.
Donald Drumpf never learned any of this shit, and it fuckin’ shows, big time.
GregB
Read what the author Andrew Bacevich has to say about praetorianism.
Without invoking Godwin’s Law, someone else really enjoyed the cultural worship of the military.
Mike R
You guys got me tearing up a bit. Fuck marines are supposed to be able to take it, Fine people here, it really helps after that horrendous election.
Baud
@Mike R:
Count yourself among them, man.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike R: DAMN IT TO HELL! This just sucks! All I can do is ask you to hang in there and fight and make things better the best you can, with your support team urging you on.
Keith G
Sitting in a medical waiting room. FOX news was on. One other guy was waiting. He (67 white) was okay with me changing the channel. A good omen.
Patricia Kayden
@Mike R: ((Mike R))
Alain the site fixer
@Felanius Kootea: can you look at previous post and help translate into main language besides English of Nigeria? Use the quick links form to send me and email and we can go from there!
Alain the site fixer
@Mike R: we’re all in this together. Glad they caught it early and Godspeed on good treatment and a long, happy future!
laura
@Mnemosyne: thank you for your thoughts -you touched a wavelength with the CCC, guided team effort, challenge, physical tasks and tangible results.
There’s a glorious WPA rock garden here in Sacramento, built to last, seasonal plants and varied tree’s shrubs and vines and it is a constant reminder that there is a need to build and repair, and idle men and women who would jump at the chance to work if only we had the will to do it.
If,in the rebuilding of the party and coming together in a platform of purpose that demands a new New Deal, or a repeat of the one that is proven to work and offers a job to anyone who needs one, I’m so in.
Mnemosyne
@Mike R:
Ugh. I hope having caught it in the early stages will help and that you get the best of care from the VA. Good luck!
NotMax
For the day’s origin.
#1 – #2
socraticsilence
@Baud:
Schumer and Warren are backing him as well.
Poopyman
@Mike R: Marines are human too, oddly enough. Time and carcinogens are hell to beat. Glad you caught it early. And fuck LBJ!
Baud
@socraticsilence: I didn’t know that. More interesting. I like him, but I stand by my view that we need a full time person in that job.
Cain
@CarolDuhart2:
We really need new blood. The dynamics of this has changed. We need younger people, not the folks from the 90s. We need a new generation of people. At least he would work full time on it. Getting someone from the establishment is unacceptable now. I would call my local party, but because of Veteran’s Day, everything is closed.
I’ve been looking at party elections and various other things. Those of you who really do want to change the direction of the party, should consider looking into being part of Democratic party or working families party and start figuring things out. I’m going to honor our veterans by making sure there aren’t going to be any wars to create more.
Poopyman
@Keith G: I wouldn’t know, since we killed our DirecTV subscription 14 months ago and took the tvs to the dump, but I’m kind of curious how an Ailes-less Fox is going to cover Trump, since the Fox folks and he don’t really get along. Will Murdoch retool Fox to be pro-Trump, or will Fox become part of the loyal opposition?
Strange times make for strange bedfellows.
dr. luba
@Doug R:
Not college educated white women, as far as I can tell. But far too many of them voted for the shitgibbon.
SFBayAreaGal
Wow, you mostly describe what I feel about being thanked for my service. I joined the Army in 1975. It wasn’t because I was patriotic, it was because I was bored. I wanted to try something different besides going to college. It sure was different.
I learned about teamwork, I learned in certain situations individuality can get you killed.
I was exposed to all walks of our fellow humans. I met people of different races, sex, and religion and loved hearing their stories. This is the part I loved the most about serving.
I also heard horrific stories from those that survived Vietnam and saw some of the mental damage from that war. That is something I will never forget. That is why to this day I am against any war. That is why to this day I have voted for those that will protect veterans benefits.
I went in thinking I could make this a career and knew by the second year it would not be the career for me. I was honorably discharged after my three year commitment.
I an glad I did serve.
Felanius Kootea
@Alain the site fixer: I speak two of the three main Nigerian languages (Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo) but not perfectly. Some of the translations below get at the sentiment being expressed but are not literal.
Do Not Be Afraid:
Yoruba: Ma b’eru
Igbo: Atuna ujo
We will help, support and protect our friends and neighbours:
Yoruba: Ama ran gbogbo eniyan t’a mo l’owo
Igbo: Anyi ge nyelu ndi nine anyi ma aka
We will get through this together:
Yoruba: Gbogbo nkan lo ma da
Igbo: Ife ncha ga di nma
NotMax
For those with Netflix, pretty good documentary on the enduring and malleable legacy of WW1, The Long Shadow, available there.
Felanius Kootea
@Mike R: Sorry to hear this. Hope you receive treatment that works.
raven
@Poopyman: Thanks, I’m packing for the beach and have limited time!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
from the deputy political editor of the New York Times
Why couldn’t they find a real American?
I’m gonna go out in my back yard, dig a hole, and lay down in it.
raven
@Mike R: I lost a buddy in August. He had prostate cancer and his treatment at the Huntington W Va VA was going well. The he hit a deer on his way home from treatment. Hang tough and watch your top knot.
Davebo
I was 19 when joined as well John and for exactly the same reasons! Classes were something you bothered with if you were totally out of beer money.
It was the second smartest decision of my life next to marrying my late wife. When people thank me for my service I just thank them back! Hey, I got to go to two Cannes film festivals and never stood a chance at being shot at which is more than I can say now.
raven
“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind —
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!
SFBayAreaGal
@raven: Raven, I was stationed at Ft. Lewis, 9th Supply and Transport, and drove a deuce-n-half ton truck.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
The vets I’ve met get a “I’m glad you made it back” from me. I mean it most sincerely and none of them seem to take it otherwise.
Villago Delenda Est
@GregB: Godwin’s Law is dead for at least the next four years. The alt-right types have made it so.
Srv
Lots of things make Cole uncomfortable. Women running for office is just one example.
raven
@SFBayAreaGal: Me too, M35A1 multi fuel! Used to by herb in the ville and hide it in this side air vents!
NotMax
Surprising? Not a whit.
stinger
@laura: I’m a veteran, but I’m afraid I can’t provide answers to your questions about how military service opens up men to their manhood. I certainly didn’t enlist looking for my womanhood.
dance around in your bones
Located an anti-Trump event in El Paso, 8pm tonight in San Jacinto Plaza (nice place). Me and Nasty Sis are heading out! That’s how we’ll honor Veteran’s Day.
Humboldtblue
@NotMax:
That’s a really solid program. I have enjoyed just about all the stuff Reynolds has produced.
I recommend the movie — The Wipers Times — also available on Netflix as well.
raven
@stinger: I think that’s all bullshit. My old man and the judge were all about that shit and the Army made me a better 1% er. I mean there we some dumb motherfuckers in charge and it wasn’t that hard to get over like a fat rat on them.
NorthLeft12
My wife and I stopped at a grocery store last night, and while walking past the checkout lines [mostly empty at that hour] I was stopped in my tracks by the covers of the trashy “news” magazines on display. The Globe and The National Enquirer had these horrific “photos” of Hillary Clinton with blaring headlines about the coming nuclear war with Russia if she is elected, along with every possible variation of crooked, corrupt, and criminal that you could find. The sidebars included swipes at Bill Clinton and his sexual predator status.
Good Dog, they hate her with the heat of a thousand suns! And I don’t doubt for a moment that they accurately reflect the thoughts of their customers. America, your white people really suck. Sorry, I hate to generalize or stereotype, but damn, this one fits.
socraticsilence
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Also, what fucking Rust Belt populist is there other than Sherrod Brown. Wait is he saying we could have made Michael Moore head of the DNC?
socraticsilence
@NotMax:
Wait..I’m confused, did I not know Hillary Clinton was a person of color all this time? Or are they just fucking idiots?
JMG
John, a very thoughtful and eloquent post. I never served, as I am Vietnam era, and damn well knew that however I wound up dying, it wouldn’t be there. Draft number 349. By the time they called me, the world would’ve been a smoking nuclear wasteland already.
But I do think of my son’s (age early 30s) who joined up. His best friends in high school were Boy Scouts, all of whom wound up making Eagle, The wild kid joined the Marines to learn to fly helicopters. He’s now making big money in tech, and is about 180 degrees different in personality. The achiever is West Point. He’s Capt. Achiever now, with two Bronze Stars in Afghanistan with Special Forces. Currently studying for his poll sci masters so he can teach at West Point, which the Army is making him do as a condition to returning to Special Forces as a higher level officer. And yes, John, his posture is amazing.
My point, if there is one, is that the service may not change how people think, but it seems to change how people are, and for the better, too. I believe that is because they choose to serve.
Roger Moore
I hate the “thank you for your service” because it’s an empty gesture. There are two things we can do that far better show how much we value our veterans’ service:
1) Keep our promises about the services and programs we’re supposed to be providing
2) Not send our military off to needless wars
We’ve been doing a crappy job at both. Saying thank you is hypocritical when their most dangerous service was unnecessary, and I’ve failed to provide them with the tangible rewards they were promised. So the best I can say is that our veterans have done and honorable job of holding up their end of the bargain, and I wish we had done a better job of holding up ours.
Steeplejack
@raven:
In the British Commonwealth (and some other European nations, e.g., France, Belgium) November 11 is Remembrance Day, “a memorial day observed [. . .] since the end of the First World War to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty.”
Ben Cisco
Retired AF here.
Thanks Cole for doing a damned good job of articulating my thoughts on the matter.
Not to mention that many of those who will thank me today signed on with the fascist, draft-dodging, ambulatory insult to every veteran who ever lived earlier in the week.
I want things to get better but if I have to “reach out” to those who want me dead, count me out.
notoriousJRT
Enjoyed the post, John. Thank you for the blog community you have nurtured – against your will or not.
raven
@Steeplejack: Yea, I knew that.
Ruckus
Going to link to a comment that I wrote on Tom’s post about Veterans Day 2010.
I’d like to amend that comment a bit.
Since then I signed up for the VA because I had no health care. They have taken excellent care of me and helped with 3 major health care issues that I have. I am grateful. I am alive. I can be somewhat productive.
But even more than that I’ve met a lot of other vets. They come from most walks of life and span ages from 30ish to 90+. Many have missing limbs and all have wounds both physical and mental. I’d venture that few of them enjoy the line “Thanks for your service.” I don’t enjoy it at all, it feels demeaning. I know it’s not meant that way, but it feels like it. It feels like people say it to make themselves feel better. I’ve even gotten it from an employee at the VA. Once. One person. And I spend a lot of time at the VA as I may have alluded to in the past. Once. That tells you something. It isn’t that we don’t like to hear thanks, every one does. I think what most of us hear is “Thanks for doing something so I didn’t have to.”
Those of you who have been in the service have stories, some good, many not so much. It was a different slice of life for most, some liked it and stayed, some hated it and bolted at the first chance. Many of us learned lessons, some of them about others, some about ourselves. Some of us went on to have meaningful lives, some are stuck in a time warp about a time that was too much or not enough of something. But the thing I keep seeing is that most didn’t think it was wasted time. Maybe horrible, maybe disfiguring, maybe physically limiting or with unintended complications years later. (Four of the people I sat with awaiting cancer treatment were in Vietnam, exposed to Agent Orange, highly likely the cause of their cancer.) Maybe hated time but not wasted time. There is a level of duty to serving, especially because so many don’t. It makes you different, like it or not.
Matt McIrvin
@NorthLeft12: Those tabloids are, I believe, published by a personal friend of Donald Trump.
stinger
@raven: People enter the military in their late teens/early twenties — a time when everyone, work, college, or military, is learning who they are. Everyone changes a lot at that age. The military provides a highly structured environment, which can be helpful to a lot of people, but even more it exposes you to experiences you’d never otherwise have and people you’d never otherwise meet (if you’re from WV or Oregon or Iowa). It’s not the military itself that “makes a man” of someone — it’s growing up that does that. I just wonder why no one ever gives the military credit for “making a woman” of of someone.
Ruckus
@Mike R:
Most, OK all, of my new friends in the cancer lottery at the VA are in the same boat.
Hang tough, it’s fixable although the fix isn’t all that pleasant. Not trying to scare you, just letting you know in case you don’t. Don’t go into this without all the knowledge you can find. If you are in the VA system they are very helpful these days. Ask lots of questions, even if it sounds stupid. Ask what are your options, all of them, what are the side affects of the various treatments, all the side affects and the probabilities of all of them. Knowledge in this case isn’t power but it can help a whole lot.
Most of all good luck
ETA almost forgot. Fuck LBJ. and FUCK FUCKING CANCER. That is all.
notoriousJRT
@Mike R:
My best wishes to you. I am sorry.
Brachiator
Great post, John. Thank you for your service, in no small part because it helped you to become the person you are today.
This day originally was meant to mark the War to End All Wars, WW I. BBC History Magazine has been running a section with the remembrances of the people involved in that struggle. Not only the soldiers, but the men and women back home, and those who worked in noncombat roles in many theaters of the war. And various related podcasts and radio programs have let the people speak for themselves. It is amazing and often humbling material. But it is also a reminder that in every time period, people come through, decency finds a way, there is a slow, uneven march towards progress and increasing inclusiveness. Hope remains.
Ruckus
@debbie:
“I’m glad you made it back” is a way lot different than “Thanks for your service” in so many ways. It doesn’t at all feel like condensation, it feels real and is a major concern for almost all service people, even if you didn’t see combat. I was half a world away and people still died, even in the navy. Not nearly as many and usually from their own stupidity but they still stopped breathing.
NorthLeft12
@Steeplejack: From Canada;
https://youtu.be/cKoJvHcMLfc
Calming Influence
I just copied and pasted this post into a word document, because when I write my memoirs I’ll just have to change “Army” to “Air Force”, “WV” to “NY”, “Fort KNox” to “Lackland AFB”, etc, and I’m good to go.
I have one of those “flashbulb memories” of sitting in a van on the flightline at Beale waiting for an SR-71 to land. Sgt. Jackson, who looked like a very black 5’8″ Lou Ferrigno, asked me who I was going to vote for, Ford or Carter? And I said “What? They’re all the same. Why Vote?” That day I received my first lesson in politics and government that stuck with me in any meaningful sense. He taught me a lot of other things, too, about the right way to live your life, but that day he really changed the way I think, and what a duty it is to vote.
I’ve always been uncomfortable with the fairly recent Vets Day phenomenon of “Thanks for your service!”. But when I see headlines like “Voter turnout at 20-year low in 2016” my new response is going to be “Did you vote? If you did, thanks. If you didn’t, you better be a registered active voter next time I see you, or we’ll be having the ‘Sgt. Jackson’ talk.”
Gavin
Hah.
Who’s Trump’s first choice for Treasury Secretary? Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase.
Trump views people who trust him… as suckers, just waiting to be taken advantage of.
Steeplejack (phone)
@NorthLeft12:
Beautiful, thanks.
Tehanu
@Doug R:
Exactly. The pro-Trump letters in the L.A. Times on Thursday morning were all from Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, Pacific Palisades — all rich neighborhoods. I had a run-in on Facebook with some woman who was horribly offended to have been called a racist when she was “intelligent and well-read.” Apparently she forgot to read the KKK endorsement of Il Douche.
sharl
I love John’s post and so many of the comments here; excellent. And seeing dancing around in your bones drop by made it even better.
Ohio Mom
@Humboldtblue: yasha koach, which is roughly speaking, “good job!” in Hebrew.
Laura
Great post, many great comments – thank you John.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tehanu: Yeah, yeah. Reinhard Heydrich was very intelligent, well read as well. He was also very charming and was a very good fencer. In addition, he was Hitler’s point man for organizing the Holocaust.