Veteran's Day Musings

Tomorrow, November 11, 2005, is Veteran's Day. This holiday is always on the 11th- not the "third Thursday in November" (Thanksgiving), or the "second Sunday in May" (Mother's Day)- because it's the anniversary of the armistice between the Allies and Germany that ended the first World War. That's why it used to be called Armistice Day- in fact, I heard my grandpa call it that a couple times.

It was changed to Veteran's Day in the fifties by the Eisenhower administration because by then there were many veterans that had had nothing to do with WWI. So now it's a day to recognize everyone that went to war defending the United States.

Veteran's day causes conflicting feelings in me.

I thank Heaven Above every day that my husband is not in the military. In fact, had he been a military-type guy, I would not have been interested in him in the first place. I hate those guys- every one I've ever met of my age is an overly aggressive, close-minded, mysoginistic, homophobic bigot who believes that loud and/or drunk is a substitute for brains.

But aside from the fact that a military family's life is inconvenient, unsettled and basically not your own, I can't stand the idea of sitting at home and wondering if someone else's husband is trying to kill mine today. I worry enough when he drives his motorcycle without his helmet.

I also pray every day that none of my kids will chose the military as a living. I read articles in the paper about the soldiers in Iraq that are being sent home because of injuries, or sent home in a box. Most of them are children- 18, 19 years old. BABIES. How in the world can a mother live through burying a strong, healthy and handsome son?

However, I am an American. Additionally, as a former American History major, I HAVE to recognize the fact that it's very likely we'd all be talking with English accents and having tea instead of supper if the original US military had not won the Revolutionary War. Or we'd be clicking our heels and sticking our arms in the air had the War Department not prevailed over the Nazi threat. (In fact, I have to recognize that it's possible I wouldn't be here at all- my non-Aryan familial line would probably had been destroyed had the Nazis ever had the chance to invade North America.)

I also come from a line of veterans- My grandpa served the army valiantly in WWII, and was terribly injured. This was at a time when hordes of newly arrived Mexican-Americans signed up willingly and eagerly to fight for the freedoms of their adopted homeland, and then were thanked when they came home by getting beaten to death in the streets for wearing zoot suits or speaking Spanish in public. No wonder assimilation was so attractive to his generation, a phenomenon which ironically caused the Chicanismo/Brown Power movements during their offspring's generation.

My dad served bravely in the Navy during Vietnam. He chose to go, though many of his friends were finding ways out of service. He was not thanked at all when he came back. Though he will be eligible for burial in Fort Logan when he moves on. Whoopie.

There is much wrong with the United States of America. Problems with unemployment, homelessness, etc and so forth. But it remains the greatest and strongest economy on earth, and the best example of democracy and freedom that has ever existed.

If not for the Veterans who have fought bravely in every war since Colonial times, America would be a different place: Would my husband have the choice to not be in the military? Would my son? Would I have the freedom to post on this blog how glad I am that we are not a military family? Would I be free to opine on the horrors of war and what a shame it is that we are killing our youth by sending them to a war I don't support? Would I be free to be vocally unsupportive of the war?

Probably not.

And for those freedoms I sincerely thank those that fight with the common virtue of uncommon valor, to paraphrase Admiral Nimitz at Iwo Jima.