Happy Veteran's Day!

11 November 2009

What a difference a year makes! Last year, at this time, the family was preparing for one of the happiest days of our lives, my daughter’s wedding. Sure the tension was high and so was the excitement as the day approached.
In preparing my toast to the couple, I wanted to make sure that I included my heartfelt sense of gratitude to all those who served in the Military. I planned to have all of them stand up and be recognized for serving our country.

Now Veteran’s Day is upon us again. It feels almost incredible to me that a year has already gone by and reflecting on the events that have characterized the last 12 months, a lot has happened.

As I prepare mentally to honor the Veterans this day, I cannot help but thinking that a year after I toasted the Veterans at my daughter’s wedding, my son would be sitting in the sands of Afghanistan, that his wife would be home with a six month old little boy and missing him, that our family would be so directly affected by world events.

It is a good thing that we do not know the future, because if we did we would not enjoy our present.

It is only fitting that the American people would celebrate this day, specifically dedicated to all those who over the history of our beloved country, have had the courage and selflessness to wear that uniform, to sign that contract, to endure those sacrifices.
There are those Veterans who were drafted into service and yet they served with honor and bravery. And then there are those who have volunteered to practically put their civilian lives on hold for the purpose to defend the ideals that have made America the greatest nation on the planet.

I think of the WWI Veterans, who endured the brutal reality of trench warfare in Europe. For most of them it was the first time they had left the comfort of their hometowns and their families, to go fight a war in a far away land.

I think of the WWII Veterans, who sadly are leaving us at a devastating pace. The horrors and brutality of the bloodiest conflict in human history were their companions for years.
From Pearl Harbor to Normandy, from Tarawa to Okinawa they endured and won. They fought in the sands of North Africa and the unforgiving mud of the Italian campaign, from the jungles of Guadalcanal to the volcanic beaches of Iwo Jima, they endured the crippling cold of Bastogne and the disgust of discovering the Nazi extermination camps.
And they came home heralded as the Great Generation.

I think of the Korean War Veterans, survivors of a war that was not considered a war. The Forgotten War. But for the survivors of the Chosin Reservoir battle, the Inchon landing and the unforgiving onslaught of Chinese troops, the memories are still there and will remain for ever. Just as they will remain for the families of those who never made it back. We should ask them if that conflict was not a war. We should ask them if they forgot.

I think of the Vietnam Veterans, the group that would be most justified to have a gripe against the Nation that rejected them. These Veterans bled and died in the heat and cold of Vietnam, enduring atrocious ground conditions and most of all an enemy who was as brutal as it was determined. Many of these Veterans came home scarred, both physically and emotionally, only to be greeted by an unappreciative country, by a society that refused to recognize their sacrifices, a society that was misdirected by a pervading sense of anti-Americanism. And Veterans were the target of those sentiments. They were defeated by a corrupted political agenda, but never on the battlefield.
And yet, all the Vietnam Veterans I know, every single one of them, are the most patriotic people I have met. Their love for the country is unmatched and their determination in the fight against the possibility of what happened to them to be repeated with our current Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan is absolutely an incredible source of inspiration for me.

I think of the Veterans that came after the draft was abolished. An all volunteer force that stepped up, and continues to do so today, to put on that uniform and to serve their country with honor and sacrifice.
This breed of worriers excelled in the liberation of Kuwait, only to be stopped too soon by politics.
This breed of Americans rushed to the defense of America following the 9-11-01 attacks, eager to put their lives on the line to right a wrong that was done against their country.
This breed, who liberated the people of Iraq, and surrounding nations, from the danger of a mad man like Saddam Hussein and today continues to sacrifice for the safety of America and the future of unknown people in Afghanistan.

And I think of all those who served in the US Armed Forces during the time when no major conflict was grabbing the attention of the American people.
Those stationed in Europe during the Cold War, when at a moment notice they could see the Soviet tanks rolling; and the airmen of the same period manning the Strategic Air Command aircrafts, loaded with nuclear weapons and willingly ready to use such weapons if ordered to do so; and the submariners cruising the ocean depths in secrecy, also ready at a moment notice to launch their ICBMs and potentially take the lives of millions.
And my thoughts go to the Military casualties of a war that our political leadership chose to ignore for many years: Beirut Marine barracks, Kobart Towers, USS Cole, Mogadishu.
Islamic fascism has been at war with the United States for years and our Military was the one to pay.

In Bing West book The Strongest Tribe, the author got the title for his magnificent analysis of the Iraqi conflict by the statement that an Iraqi officer made to him. In a society like Iraq, and the whole region for that matter, where tribal influence and allegiance are so strong, the fact that an Iraqi would describe the American Military as the strongest tribe is, in my mind, considerable, especially when the comment was sparked not just by an allusion to our Military might, but by the observation of the bond that American troops display.
In my humble opinion the “strongest tribe” is the Greatest Generation.

So on this Veteran’s Day 2009, I want to express once again my most sincere appreciation for every single member of our Armed Forces.
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard, Reserves, you are all in my continuous prayers.
And I would like to end with one of my favorite quotes, from John Stuart Mill:

“War is an ugly thing, but it is not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made so by exertions of better men than himself”.

And these are my thoughts!
Frank “Semperpapa”