“Thanks For Your Service”

Gordon Steele
6 min readNov 10, 2023

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“ha, well thank you for paying your taxes!” — that is my canned response to anyone who says that to me.

I’ve heard it so many times (and by no means do I have anything against those that say it because it is considered the polite social thing to do) that I get moderately embarrassed because there are people who did much more and gave a hell of a lot more for wars that actually meant something. It sort of loses its luster though when you realize that the government that said they’d take care of you isn’t going to do that, unless of course you have the mind of a third year law student because utilizing benefits is not a given, it is made intentionally difficult.

This pleasantry that we constantly need to thank someone for something they volunteered for, a dangerous spell of their lives, becomes fucking annoying, and not because of the person saying it, but because of the aforementioned red-tape government giving zero fucks. Regular folks are saying it with good intention, we all know that, but how many hands do I have to shake when really I just want to shake the government? It shouldn’t be up to the populace to give veterans what they are owed, it should be the ones who decided to start these wars doing that. Here’s how they do it: they capitalize on the young and disenfranchised men and women who are easy marks for recruiters (these recruiters are just salesmen in Army uniforms), they tell them how the Army will take care of them and give them benefits, and then send them off to meaningless wars. When they get home from these wars they play pretend that they’ve got your back but in reality once you’re out you are nothing to them.

Can someone explain to me how I have student loan debt despite being an Iraq war veteran? Oh wait I can! The Army does not pay for your school! They’ll give you some if you’ve been deployed, but you will only get a percentage based on active duty time. There are some states that will grant veterans free tuition to any public university, and god bless those law makers, but this should be on the federal level, not state. So if you think joining the military is going to give you a full ride to school you need to think again because that is not the case whatsoever.

Veteran’s Day is a day to honor those who deployed to a combat zone. Those who said, “fuck it, I’m a 17 year old high school dropout, might as well take the $20,000 Uncle Sam is offering me and sign up!” A17 year old really can’t piece together why Uncle Sam is willing to part with such a large sum, the 33 year old realizes it’s because the Army was absolutely desperate to find a replacement for the guy who just got hit by an IED. They then find themselves in a position where they no-longer have control of their lives. They are property of the government, purchased at the low-low price of $20,000. That “large sum” doesn’t feel so large anymore when you realize you’ve indentured yourself to an entity that gives zero fucks about you.

If you want to thank a veteran for their service don’t thank them for going overseas, thank them for being willing to be young and dumb and aggressively sure of themselves. In fact, don’t talk about it at all, just say, “hey how’s it going?” because these days that’s really what a veteran needs to hear.

And all these stupid Veteran’s day sales and benefits, don’t get me started. 10% off a mattress? Fuck you, how many mattresses do I need? A new one every fucking year?. Ooo a free side of some shit at Perkins? Fuck you too.

I’m a veteran, and maybe a hypocrite, but I only ever play the “veteran card” at airports where I can cut in line. A lady in Dallas once had the entire line of about 100 people start clapping, “we got a hero over here!” Fucking big sigh for me knowing I have to stop staring at the ground and look to these folks and pretend to be proud so they don’t realize that the whole fucking war was bullshit. I love them for this, and I really appreciate that the every man/woman understands the job to some degree, but those same people don’t realize that the government fucks you when it comes to benefits. I get that everyone feels this obligation to say the phrase but you really don’t have to because there are much better ways to thank a veteran.

Another airport (I won’t name names) refused my entry to the USO despite having my dd214 and veteran ID. Meanwhile they let spouses of active duty members in. What kind of sense does that make? The place was empty. A veteran can’t catch a nap on a couch instead of the cold airport floor? Yeah, thanks for my service…We’ve wanted to take care of our vets ever since the generation that saw Vietnam vets come home but are we really doing it? You need to jump through hoops and be somewhat well versed in forms/documents/basically be a lawyer to understand the benefits. The same benefits they tell you about after a 9 month deployment where all you care about is going home.

A very dear friend of mine quickly became hooked on opiates when we got back from Iraq. He ended up having to deal drugs to support his habit. This was during the beginning of the opioid epidemic, another thing the government didn’t give a fuck about. Local police officers purposefully set him up near enough to a school zone so he would be extra fucked. He was looking at some serious jail time and OD’d. The police officers, fellow uniformed entities of the government, actively ruined my friend’s life.

On Veteran’s Day I do nothing but sit at home, drink beer, and watch war movies, just for kicks. Wars I wasn’t even a part of. I like to sit there on my couch, in my underwear, and just say to myself, “fuck, thank god I wasn’t in ‘Nam”.

Do the math. We’ve sent hundreds of thousands of kids overseas to live or die for some nonsense reason. Let me rephrase that, do you know a 17/18 year old? Do you know how fucking stupid they are? They signed their life away for 3+ years to go fight a war that they give ZERO shits about and when they get home they lose all sense of autonomy. The structure the Army provided for food, bills, clothes, ‘be at the right place at the right time in the right uniform” is now gone. You throw a 20 year old back into the world after that and they will become lost. I’ve been that person and I’ve seen my buddies be that person as well. Alcohol, drugs, severely risky behavior, SUICIDE, and the list goes on.

Veterans are coming home and killing themselves at an alarming rate. Personally, for me, I had no idea what resources were available, no one told me, and if they did I had no idea because a 20 year old me (who by the way couldn’t buy a beer when he got home) did not retain that information because in a few days I was finally going home. We are “rah-rah” when watching football and think, “we’re the best country in the world!” but we’re not, we are not taking care of the people who said, “fuck it, I’ll go”.

This Veteran’s Day, don’t just say “Happy Veteran’s Day!” like it’s some fucking holiday. Instead, reach out to them, talk to them, speak nothing of the fact they are veterans. If they are your friend or family then I’m sure you’ll have enough to talk about. Simply reaching out is so much better than “thank you for your service.”

As an aside, if you want to say “thank you for your service” then please, by all means do it. The sentiment is always nice coming from regular folks. The sentiment is not nice coming from the government.

(If you are struggling to find a place to talk with other veterans please reach out to the community on https://www.squabblr.co/s/veterans

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