I am a Veteran. Today is Veteran’s Day. That’s the easy part. The rest is much more complicated, for both my country and me. It’s hard for me to put into words what the meaning of my service is and how challenging it is to explain my feelings to those who never served. But I’ll try, again, to see if I can get it right.
My motivation for joining the Army in 1986 was not based in altruism; it was purely pragmatic. I had screwed up high school, figured I’d screw up community college, and regardless, my family was poor and wouldn’t be paying for my higher education. The Army recruiter found me at a moment of weakness, and I signed up for a three-year stint, guaranteed to be in Europe; the $24K for college was also a big incentive. Sure, on some level, I did feel a little pride in doing my part in defending my country, but I really didn’t worry that much about the Soviet horde rolling over the German border into WWIII. It was a low-risk gamble, and I took it.
It was a challenging time, but I got lucky and served at Ramstein AFB; an Air Base is like the Ivy League compared to an Army base, and I enjoyed the benefits of an easy base life. The three years flew by, I had great adventures, and in the end, I made some of my best friends in the world; they’re as close, or closer to me, than my own brothers. Two months after I got out, one of my best friends died in a car accident near Frankfurt, and his loss still pains me nearly twenty years later. As time passed and my service faded, I hardly spoke of it anymore, and sometimes, it seems like a surreal memory that barely existed. The last seven years since 9/11 brought it all back, and my perspective has drastically changed.
I was not a supporter of the Iraq misadventure, for several reasons. The main one was that I was certain that this would not be a repeat of Gulf War I, and I didn’t believe our goal of regime change in Iraq required the massive military attack we were planning. The other reason was that I realized our soldiers were going to be asked to pay a terrible price, and based on past behavior, I was convinced our government would not pay them back in a commensurate manner. That’s one prophecy I wish I’d gotten wrong. My anger at the deaths, injuries and PTSD that our young soldiers have experienced is hard to contain. I saw the documentary "Last Letters From Home", and it broke my heart. I listened to the words of these valiant people as they tried to calm the fears of their families, tried to explain why they were there, and in most cases, tried to gauge the meaning of their own service. I remembered back to when I was a lonely kid in Germany, begging in letter after letter for pictures, news, and notes from the family and friends I missed so badly. I saw my buddies and myself in the pictures of those kids in Iraq; their words were my words, twenty years before. My letters to home were not high-minded diatribes about honor and service; they were funny stories about drunken escapades or mundane events that happened in my unit. In seeing the grieving families, I wondered what my untimely death would have done to my family and my girlfriend back then. I was on Ramstein AFB when the horrible Flugtag accident occurred; my family didn’t know for a day whether I was okay or not. Later, my father told me that my mother was inconsolable during that time, and I can’t imagine what the news of my death would have done to her. As the casualty list grew, I forced myself to read the obituaries of the fallen soldiers, and my sadness mixed with anger. I began to realize that my duty to my fellow soldiers didn’t end in 1989, and that once you join that particular club, you don’t ever truly leave it.
Over the last several years, I’ve made it known to people that I once served my country; I want them to know why I am so angry about this debacle in Iraq. When we mistreat our War Veterans, the ones who’ve paid the highest price, we unravel the fabric that built this country. I no longer look at my time in the Army as a three-year adventure spent growing up overseas. I have a stronger sense of pride in what I did, because I finally realized that my friends and I were exactly like those men (and women) who fell in Iraq, either through death or wounds. We would have fought as hard for our country as they did, and we would have grieved as hard for the loss of our fellow soldiers. We are the lucky ones, because we avoided that kind of service through the kindness of a peacetime that today’s soldiers did not have the luxury of experiencing. I see all of them as my brothers and sisters, and I thank them for making a sacrifice few of us will ever remotely appreciate in full. Mostly, I thank them for reminding me that I was a soldier as well and that I can say that with pride for once, a pride that is undiminished by the ease of my service time.
Today, on what used to be known as Armistice Day and then Remembrance Day, we celebrate all soldiers, from the Continental Army who freed us from British tyranny over 200 years ago, to those who are driving a Humvee on an Iraqi street right now, hoping to God that an IED doesn’t strike them down before they see their home again. In this hopeful new era of American politics, we have a chance to ensure that the sacrifices made by our newest Veterans do not go unrewarded. If a reward starts with a thanks, then let me start there. I want to thank every one of my fellow Veterans for what you’ve done for our country, and for me personally. I love you all, beyond words, and I hope to say that to as many of your faces as I can. I am proud to call you all my brothers.