On Veterans Day
As a newly-minted vet, it can be a confusing holiday.
Here’s a new take on an old story: you were young on 9/11, you’re brimming with idealism and decide to put your money where your mouth is by signing up. The next couple years give you a taste (or tastes) of war and all of its nuances — the banality and daily routine, the idiocy and cowboy talk, the moments of humanity and inhumanity. You come across too many officers who talk like politicians, you wade through an unflinching bureaucracy, and eventually you find yourself taking off the uniform for the last time.
So Veterans Day becomes puzzling because you’re proud of your comrades, but not necessarily the institution. You appreciate the offers of free meals on Veterans Day, but the best Soldiers you knew wouldn’t be caught dead accepting such a thing. You’re thankful society defaults to respect for veterans, but overall you just wish it wasn’t necessary in the first place. You just want this to be a regular Monday.
Some words of (minor) consolation:
War is as old as mankind, and the waste, narcissism, and senselessness that come in its wake are nothing new, they just seem new to our generation. Michael Herr said it best in Dispatches - “old story, unless you’ve never heard it before.”
