Today, is Veteran’s Day. When I was a kid, it was a day when after work my dad would put on his dress pants, white shirt, tie, and his American Legion garrison cap. He would go to the legion hall where they would have a small ceremony, mostly with other WWII vets. They would have a few beers, and then he would come home. As my dad got older the legion ceremony’s got smaller, every year fewer and fewer WWII vets, the bulk of the legion membership were passing away. My dad and I were the only father/son members—he served in the Navy in WWII, and I in the Army during the Cold War/Gulf War I. I was never really active in the legion—I never felt accepted there, the closest in age veteran to me was a Vietnam vet who was old enough to be my father. I resigned my membership in 2009; I am sure my father would have done the same thing.
There is an old saying that you can take a man out of the Army, but you can never take the Army out of the man. It is true—when I got out of the Army I wanted to distance myself from it. Very few of my peers had served, my experiences were so foreign to them that I may as well have been talking about walking on the moon. When I first started college after the Army, I found that some professors had an implicit bias against me. To them, I was just a dumb grunt, one of my professors even told me I would never pass her class. She taught English 101; I wish I could remember her name, I would love to show her that the dumb grunt she said would never pass her class is now a writer.
I stopped telling people I had been in the military; when I was in a US History class, I stayed silent as the professor discussed the, at the time, recently fallen Berlin Wall, and inter-German border—even though I knew it far more intimately than anyone in that room did. I was still in the National Guard when the Gulf War started, as silly as it may sound, I tried my damnedest to go back to active duty and join my brothers in the 101st Airborne Division, but it was not to be. After the war, veterans were looked upon differently, people would thank me for my service (something I have never gotten used to). Then, they would turn around and treat me as if I were a dumb grunt. A girl I had dated around that time told me that I joined the Army because I could not hack college, and I again tried to distance myself from my service. (I also dumped the girl.) As I have grown older I find that I cannot distance myself from my time in the Army, it is, and will forever be a part of who I am.
While I do not wear the uniform anymore there is still a soldier inside of me. I may not be as strong or as swift as I once was, but the solider that was is still inside of me. Lessons learned over thirty years ago have never been forgotten. I may never pick up a weapon again in my life, however, I will always be able to disassemble and assemble an M-16A1/M-203 rifle, a M1911 Pistol, a M-60 machine gun, and a M2 .50 Caliber machine gun. I will always remember how to drive a M113 armored personnel carrier using night vision on a moonless night. I will forever remember how build a triple standard concertina fence, how to set up shaped and cratering charges, rappel out a UH-60 Blackhawk with a hundred pounds of gear on my back, and how to lay out a minefield, for the soldier that I once was is forever inside of me.
I volunteered to serve of my own accord. I did it because I believed it was the right thing to do, to serve my country. I served on the border between the Western world and the Communist world. I have been a part of the one of the greatest divisions in the United States Army, the 101st Airborne Division. I have seen and done things that most men will never do, and would not be willing to do. To me, I look back on it and think of it as my first job.
I am not a hero, and write this not for accolades or thanks. None of that is necessary. I write this to show that, while we may be dumb grunts, we are all around you. You may see that balding middle-aged man and not give him a second thought, but in his youth, he was a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine. That young man in his 30’s with the close cropped haircut, he was in Iraq. That young woman you see in the elevator every morning on the way to your office, she was a helicopter pilot.
Even though you do not see us, we are all around you. You do not need to thank us, just recognize that we are really no different than you are. We served, we got out, we went on to live our lives—we are not a bunch of dumb grunts. If you find it necessary to say thank you, I would ask you to instead give to the USO or other service- or veteran-related charity.