Please do not thank me for my service in our nation's Navy. There are certainly others to thank but not me. I took the JOB because I was failing in college in 1974 and couldn't find suitable employment in Tucson not because I was giving back to my country or doing anything particularly patriotic. The vast majority of the people I met in there were doing exactly the same thing. Now we were theoretically at peace at the time even though the Cold War was raging fiercely behind the scenes. It was a combo of good and bad, showed me parts of the world I'd have never seen, gave me an insight into human nature I'd have never got, gave me a technical education I couldn't afford but it tried to dehumanize and exploit me. It gave me an glimpse into the utter waste and depravity of our military industrial complex and convinced me we were not always the good guys my naive 19 year old mind had been programmed to believe.
I met wonderful people in the service but they were by no means the majority and the worst of the bunch were people that flocked into an environment that did their thinking for them and rewarded them with incredible power over others for only their longevity. I saw the blood lust that attracted many to a calling that should have been always honorable but was often inhuman and uncaring, a place that rewarded authoritarianism.
What's ironic is that initially I thrived in that environment rising quickly up the enlisted ranks, excelling at all tasks and challenges. It seemed I could stay above the rubble by just concentrating on the technical aspects of the nuclear reactors we were tending to keep subs and ships running but ultimately it began to sink in that we were feeding a massive killing machine that was doing the bidding of the wealthy and powerful. Sure there were bad guys in the world and there was a need to have a force to defend against them but there was also this underlying current from the powers above that our massive military had to be utilized completely, even if we had to prod and tease those other entities to bring about conflict. As the election of 1980 was approaching it was clear that Reagan was the front-runner, a man that was bragging about winning Armageddon.
I began to sense around me that this new dynamic was exciting the rednecks in charge and we began training on how to survive the upcoming nuclear exchange. The Soviets were in turmoil themselves but there was a glimmer of hope in new thinking by guys like Gorbachev and a public fed up with the failed promises of communism. However, both sides were on a hair trigger and all around me all I could see were people delighting in the opportunity for a massive fight.
With about a year left of my 6 year enlistment I decided to walk away, turn my back on a system I no longer wanted to be a part of, firmly believing I was rejoining my friends and family to possibly watch the end of the world together. 7 years later when they caught up with me (I was living at home paying taxes not exactly hiding) I was brought back, convicted of desertion at a courts martial, spend a few months in what was basically a return to boot camp, given a bad conduct discharge and my life went out of limbo. It was chilling and scary but somehow through luck we managed to survive the era, my life changed immeasurably.
If you were part of our nation’s military and actually had to face bullets and explosions, went in because you wanted to make a positive difference in the world or were drafted against your will then I do thank you for your service and others should as well. All through our history soldiers have truly fought and died in honorable exchanges that weren’t about imperialism or profit and they should be remembered and honored. However, if you enlisted because you like playing video games and the fake blood on the screen didn’t make you feel macho enough, or you stayed in because you enjoyed the false power you could wield that your own potential would never have achieved outside of that structured world then I hold no extra respect and you’re as much a part of the problem as Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.
Days like today always are a mixed bag of emotions for me. I’m proud of the fact that I jumped into that pit, a world of unknowns and potential danger, experienced the beast from within, but I’m not any more special because I did it, even if I’d ridden out my revulsion and finished my enlistment “honorably”. It is what it is. Our military is a necessary evil and everyone involved shares a portion of that evil as well as the good that can come about from its judicious use. The military today though is bloated and wasteful and generates a horrible price when it is overused and misapplied, something that needs to be whittled down piece by piece over decades. Our society needs to spend way more time honoring teachers, artists, and scientists than our warriors.
Ultimately, thank people because they’re good people, because they care more about others than they do themselves. Some of those will be in the military or be veterans. Many more will not.