Veteran’s Day

It would appear that today is again Veteran’s day. Happens every year at this time, 11/11, and it generally has pretty much the same effect on most of us Veterans.

What happens almost every year is a lot of people who were never in the military get together and form committees to put on celebrations to honor their favorite sub groups of Vets effectively excluding all the other Veterans from the day that is supposed to be for us.

This year the big thing is the folks currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, oh, and all the men who died in various wars, and lastly there’s some state making a real big deal about their last surviving WWI Vet.

What about the rest of us? What about the soldiers guarding the 39th parallel at the edge of North and South Korea? Are they less worthy? All the men in the VA hospitals missing arms and legs and minds, did they not give enough of themselves?

I was in a boat in Viet Nam that was blown up killing the other three men in the boat. Their sacrifice was great enough for it to be their Veteran’s day. I was able to go on to kill the mortar crew that killed them, but I’m not worthy. They gave me a bronze star and a purple heart and now they wont even admit I was in Viet Nam. When we came home we were spit on and had foul things thrown at us. When might we expect it to be our Veteran’s Day?

There is a line from a song from the late sixties called "Good Christian Soldier" it goes "I can’t separate the winners from the losers anymore and I’m thinking of just giving up the fight." If the ones who died were the winners and the ones who came home are the losers then it’s harder now than ever not to give up the fight.

Uncle Dave US Navy 1968-1979 First Class Petty Officer