Veterans Day 2003

As always, here I sit typing my annual Veteran's Day message.  For some reason, this year I struggle to come up with a "message that I wish to convey so you will have to forgive the lack of an overriding theme to my message.  As I suffered from writer's block, inspiration came from a highly unusual source - the most recent issue of VFW Magazine.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, this is a magazine sent to members of the Veteran's of Foreign Wars (of which I am a member) that touches on a wide variety of veteran's issues from advocacy to war stories to veteran's health care (don't get me started on that one) and such. 

Anyway, in it was an article called "Repaying the Debt:  A sense of guilt pervades many males of Generation X for putting self-interest above public service."  The author, Kenneth Lee, is a 28-year-old man working for a "large New York law firm."  In the article he details how guilty he and others of generation feel for not having served.  How he has come to regret it and how the examples of honor and sacrifice of our veterans have made him, "beam with pride." 

BTW - You can read the article at:  http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17595/article_detail.asp  It was originally printed in this magazine, then reprinted for VFW Magazine.

After initially reading the essay, I was somewhat heartened to read about a "generation X'er" that has the feelings that Mr. Lee has.  I thought perhaps this was a sign of change in the way many people, particularly the younger generation, view military service. 

But as I reread the article twice, three times, something began to gnaw at me.  Mr. Lee apparently feels "so ashamed" for never having served, he says he regrets it, and envies those that have. 

After re-reading it, I as a veteran feel insulted by the author.  What exactly was Mr. Lee's goal in writing this?  To perhaps provide some therapy of sorts for his well-deserved guilt?  To ease his own conscience? 

Well, I would tell Mr. Lee that I find his comments an insult to those of us that did serve.  Talk is cheap and deeds speak louder than words.  He is only 28 years old - it is not too late for him to repay the debt he feels he owes to this country and those of us that did serve and did fight!  I am quite certain the JAG Corp could make great use of his two Ivy League degrees and the experience he has gained at his "large New York law firm."  If he would truly like to exorcize his demons of guilt, I would be more than happy to put him in contact with a local military recruiting office. 

I am indeed sorry for the guilt he feels - but he should have those feelings.  Unless he is willing to step up to the pump, he should not look to me or other veterans to assuage his guilt and should not insult me from his New York law office with tales of woe about how guilty he feels for not having served when there are many men and women of his and past generations who do and have served

I have no fantasies or delusions about my military service.  I am well aware that there are those in our nation's history that served longer and served in (and are currently serving in) much harsher conditions and endured horrors that no one can even imagine.  My six-plus years of service were relatively "cozy" with the worst of it having been aboard an aircraft carrier for a six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf in 1996 during Operation Desert Strike. 

Veterans are not men that want pity, nor do they want to hear about how sorry someone might be for having not served or the excuses they might offer for not doing so.  Sure we all bitch and complain about our service - but we have a right to.  Each of us was there for our own reasons, admittedly most of which were not noble or from some higher calling. 

The point is though that we were there, we did fight and we all made sacrifices of one sort or another - many making the ultimate sacrifice.  Those that have served have fought from one corner of this world to the next, died in more places than one could count and served with pride, honor, courage and commitment. 

Search the Internet and the stories are there...

A man who remembered his uncle who landed at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. The veteran told his nephew that he tried to walk on the beach on June 7, but he could not. There were so many bodies he had to walk on them. 

A former Marine who on June 16, 2001 laid to rest a comrade of his 33 years to the day after he was missing in action in Vietnam.  Why so long?  Because recovery teams in Vietnam had just recovered an arm bone and a finger.

A Marine just home from Iraq who had taken shrapnel in his hand. The Marine said he had been wounded while trying to make an unsafe country safe for the innocent people who lived there under intolerable oppression. This young man believes he was simply doing his job for God and country.

This morning I went out to my flagpole to raise the POW / MIA flag beneath the Stars & Stripes like I do every Veteran's & Memorial Day.  As I was pulling on the rope, my eye fell to my wrist where I wear a POW / MIA bracelet (and have for 10+ years).  On it is inscribed the name of a young man from Arizona, shot down over North Vietnam who never came home. 

LT Robin Bern Cassell was 26 years old when he disappeared, nine years younger than I am now.  A life taken from his family and this world long before his time but a life not given in vain as it was a sacrifice of love - love for God and love for country.

That spirit of patriotism and loyalty echoes loudly throughout the hills of Arlington National Cemetery and in the voices of veterans you can talk to today.  .   

This afternoon I am going to stop by a local park where they are dedicating a new veteran's memorial.  I will stand there, most assuredly with tears in my eyes, and think of these men and my fellow veterans.  I will say three words to those depicted in the memorial as well as to all veterans - "Thank you, shipmates."

Tony