My family tree, to some degree, has a history of American veterans. My mother’s grandfather was an MP in World War I who later came home and became a cop who walked a beat in Brooklyn, NY. Was an Irish cop in Brooklyn unheard of back then? I wonder. My father’s brothers all enlisted in the military. His brother Cyril was in the Air Force and later flew 727s for American Airlines. Their brother Dick was in the Marines and became an engineer who eventually worked for a company that worked on the space shuttle. My father enlisted in the Army during the Korean War and served as a cook, directing the men beneath him to peel mountains of potatoes for the hungry men. He was lucky that he wasn’t on the front lines. He was transferred to the front lines two days after a peace agreement had been reached. My father says that he was fortunate that he never had to kill a man.
My father truly was one of the lucky ones. During the war, the Army sometimes had him ride in a boxcar full of food on the train, armed with a box of hand grenades in case the enemy attacked the train for the food. He was lucky enough that the train was never attacked. He came home after serving a standard 3-year term, and then, through the G.I. Bill, was able to go to college and become a teacher. I saw a piece on DK recently about how so many people of color were not all able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill. That is a terrible tragedy, because the G.I. Bill changed my father’s life.
Dad graduated from St. John’s University in the 1950s because of the G.I. Bill, then later got his Master’s Degree from Columbia College. He met my mother at St. John’s. She was also studying to be a teacher. She eventually got her Master’s Degree as well, all while raising four children. They are both still alive, Dad is 87 and mom is 83. Dad just left with my brother to go get a free Veteran’s Day breakfast at IHOP. As he left a few minutes ago, I yelled to my father, “Dad, tell those young whippersnapper’s what it was like!”. He laughed. He’s never used the term “whippersnapper” in his life, and he never tells war stories.
I wish that everyone was as lucky as my family as has been. All of our veterans have come home in one piece—largely undamaged mentally and physically—and able to benefit from things like the G.I. Bill. My father was the first type of veteran—one of the lucky ones who comes home completely whole and in one piece. The second type of veterans is the one who never come home at all—the ones we honor on Memorial Day. They all made the ultimate sacrifice and we cannot ever thank them enough. All we can do is honor and remember them and make sure that their families are taken care of.
Finally, there are the third type of veterans. These are the ones who come home but left a piece of themselves behind. Some lost an arm or a leg. Some suffer things like PTSD from having to do two shifts a day, getting hardly any sleep, and then through a military stop-loss program, being forced to do tour after tour, no matter how badly their minds were damaged. All three types are veterans. They are all supremely important to our nation. They all have earned our honor; they have all earned our respect, and they all have earned our tax dollars spent on things like decent medical care—both physical and mental.
Our folks serving in the U.S. Military forces have also earned something else. They have earned the right to never have their lives, their bodies, and their minds put at risk unnecessarily. Our American Presidents should never put their lives on the line for some foolish and unnecessary war just because an American President thinks it might help his poll numbers and/or possibly help him to get re-elected (I’m looking at you LBJ and GWB). They also should never be asked to serve with allies, work with them hand and hand, and then be required to abandon those allies (This is all you, Donald Trump).
I wish that every American family was as lucky as my family was—to have everyone come home safe and largely undamaged. However, I know that not every family is this lucky, and for this I am truly sorry. There will always be things that I believe in and will be willing to fight for. I believe that we must always make sure that all of our veterans are taken care of, and that they all get benefits from things like the G.I. Bill, regardless of their skin color. I also believe that we must make sure that our veterans are taken care of when they come home, both physically and mentally. Finally, we must do all we can to stop veteran homelessness.
On top of all of this, and perhaps most important of all, we must make sure that we never risk our valuable veterans lives unnecessarily—through either so-called “police actions” or trumped-up wars based on fake yellowcake reports, and Colin Powell holding up vials with white substances in them. Manufactured wars risk the lives of our soldiers, they cost our nation trillions of dollars that could be spent elsewhere, and they have caused millions of unnecessary deaths in various countries around the world. Let us respect our veterans and the people of the world enough to only fight wars when we absolutely and completely have run out of other options—and not because someone thinks a President would look good in a flight suit standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier. We Americans will always want our soldiers to come home safely. We should also want even more for our soldiers to avoid wars whenever they can.
To all American veterans serving around the world, to all who have served, and to all the veterans that we have lost, Happy Veteran’s Day. You are valued, appreciated, and loved. If you have ever put your life on the line for another person or your country, you have earned the right to walk proudly and tall, and if you aren’t a veteran, see if you can find one and give him or her a pat on the back or maybe a smile. Then, when you have a chance, please feel free to go back to making sure we get rid of any President who does not truly value our soldiers, their missions, and their allies. Peace.