![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Eighty-seven years ago my paternal grandfather, in Nottingham, England, turned 18. At the same time, in Compiegne, France, WWI was ending. I've often joked that grampa should have thanked his mother every year on his birthday for her great timing. There's no doubt that, given his age and class, he would have been drafted had the war continued.
has been commemorated for decades, first as Armistice Day, later as Veteran's Day (USA) and Remembrance Day (the Commonwealth countries). In the US, it's a day set aside to honor all of our living veterans, though I think most people don't consider it important any longer. I'm at work - all the courts are closed, the courier service is closed, the post office is closed, but heaven forbid the law firm closes! Maybe people think it's a silly holiday - patriotism has been out of fashion, for the most part, since I was very young and I guess it sounds cheesy to most people to thank a vet, especially nowadays when the wars they fight don't affect our country and our (European) allies directly. There aren't any rations or curfews in place, no one puts up blackout curtains for fear that Iraqi insurgents will fly over our country and bomb our cities. I don't know. But every year, it bothers me. To let this day pass like any other day just seems wrong, disrespectful. After all, it's not a day set aside to honor war, it's a day set aside to honor veterans, both war and peacetime vets, whether they were in the thick of combat, conscientious objectors who served their tours of duty as medics, or someone manning an office in Iceland for 364 days in peacetime. What's wrong with letting one day in the year be different from the others?
The war in Iraq is very unpopular. So was Vietnam (though unlike Vietnam, there's no one there who was forced to join the military). Like Vietnam, it's showing signs of never ending. I keep hoping that, unlike Vietnam, the American people will be able to separate the members of our military that serve in Iraq from the war itself, and not eventually begin to treat them like dirt when they return. I was 12 when Vietnam ended and it seemed like that war was always part of my life, even though it didn't affect me directly until I got married. "POW" and "MIA" was part of my vocabulary growing up, hearing arguments - loud, angry arguments - about the war on tv and sometimes in people's homes was common, every once in awhile we'd hear that someone's dad was never coming home. I remember a veteran, returned from his tour of duty, attending church with his family. He seemed broken, his face haunted. I think all of us young kids (I was 6 then) were a little afraid of him. I don't remember ever hearing him speak.
My maternal great-grandmother told me once that when WWI ended - she was 10 - her parents woke her up and the whole family drove by horse cart from their Indiana farm to town, where there was a bonfire in the town center and all the church bells were ringing. We've all seen newsreels of the celebrations that took place when WWII ended. There aren't films of such celebrations after the end of Vietnam. No cause to celebrate, we lost that one, slinking home hats in hand, leaving our allies to fend for themselves. I think we stayed far too long. I often wonder if we should have been there to begin with and generally conclude no. When our veterans came home, they were treated like something you'd scrape off your shoe before entering your house. I hope we get out of Iraq soon and I hope that, no matter how things end, no matter how long it takes, no matter how unpopular this war becomes, the men and women serving there are never treated like Vietnam vets were.
Irish is a vet. He was in the Marines for 10 years - 1968-1978, entering a couple of months before his 17th birthday. (Back then you could enlist at 17 with parental permission, so he did like so many boys have done in the past, altered his birth certificate and conned permission out of his mother. Can't tell you how many similar stories I've heard!) He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and earned several medals, including purple hearts, during his military career. (He doesn't have them anymore; he left them at the Memorial.) He has scars all over his body, literally from head to toe, but the scars inside are worse. There's something a little broken in him - I suspect there is in all combat vets - and I think it's probably not really fixable. Today before work, we were watching the news where they talked about the parade here in Las Vegas. (Hey, Las Vegas has a parade! I don't think the last town I lived in did that much.) This year the parade is dedicated to Vietnam vets, to give them the welcome home they didn't get thirty years ago. I told Irish he should be in it and he just shrugged. Then he said, "When I came home back then, they shot at me and spit at me and threw shit at me. Fuck 'em now." I don't suppose anyone will ever convince him that people don't think that way anymore, that what he did - not just his two tours of duty but the entire decade of his life that he gave to this country - means something to some people. The way this day slides by anymore, maybe he's right.
But I'm still - I don't know - silly enough? Cheesy enough? To want to honor and thank our vets, even though I generally just say "Happy Veterans Day". Thanks to Great-uncle Bill in England (WWI), Grampa Gene (WWII-Navy), Uncle Ed and Uncle Bill (WWII-Navy), Grampa Carl (Korea-Army), Irish and cousin Roger (Vietnam-USMC and Army), cousin Wesley (peacetime-Navy) and also to my friends and those whom I don't know.
That's the rant for the year. It tends to be an annual thing. *g* Back to fandom now.
has been commemorated for decades, first as Armistice Day, later as Veteran's Day (USA) and Remembrance Day (the Commonwealth countries). In the US, it's a day set aside to honor all of our living veterans, though I think most people don't consider it important any longer. I'm at work - all the courts are closed, the courier service is closed, the post office is closed, but heaven forbid the law firm closes! Maybe people think it's a silly holiday - patriotism has been out of fashion, for the most part, since I was very young and I guess it sounds cheesy to most people to thank a vet, especially nowadays when the wars they fight don't affect our country and our (European) allies directly. There aren't any rations or curfews in place, no one puts up blackout curtains for fear that Iraqi insurgents will fly over our country and bomb our cities. I don't know. But every year, it bothers me. To let this day pass like any other day just seems wrong, disrespectful. After all, it's not a day set aside to honor war, it's a day set aside to honor veterans, both war and peacetime vets, whether they were in the thick of combat, conscientious objectors who served their tours of duty as medics, or someone manning an office in Iceland for 364 days in peacetime. What's wrong with letting one day in the year be different from the others?
The war in Iraq is very unpopular. So was Vietnam (though unlike Vietnam, there's no one there who was forced to join the military). Like Vietnam, it's showing signs of never ending. I keep hoping that, unlike Vietnam, the American people will be able to separate the members of our military that serve in Iraq from the war itself, and not eventually begin to treat them like dirt when they return. I was 12 when Vietnam ended and it seemed like that war was always part of my life, even though it didn't affect me directly until I got married. "POW" and "MIA" was part of my vocabulary growing up, hearing arguments - loud, angry arguments - about the war on tv and sometimes in people's homes was common, every once in awhile we'd hear that someone's dad was never coming home. I remember a veteran, returned from his tour of duty, attending church with his family. He seemed broken, his face haunted. I think all of us young kids (I was 6 then) were a little afraid of him. I don't remember ever hearing him speak.
My maternal great-grandmother told me once that when WWI ended - she was 10 - her parents woke her up and the whole family drove by horse cart from their Indiana farm to town, where there was a bonfire in the town center and all the church bells were ringing. We've all seen newsreels of the celebrations that took place when WWII ended. There aren't films of such celebrations after the end of Vietnam. No cause to celebrate, we lost that one, slinking home hats in hand, leaving our allies to fend for themselves. I think we stayed far too long. I often wonder if we should have been there to begin with and generally conclude no. When our veterans came home, they were treated like something you'd scrape off your shoe before entering your house. I hope we get out of Iraq soon and I hope that, no matter how things end, no matter how long it takes, no matter how unpopular this war becomes, the men and women serving there are never treated like Vietnam vets were.
Irish is a vet. He was in the Marines for 10 years - 1968-1978, entering a couple of months before his 17th birthday. (Back then you could enlist at 17 with parental permission, so he did like so many boys have done in the past, altered his birth certificate and conned permission out of his mother. Can't tell you how many similar stories I've heard!) He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and earned several medals, including purple hearts, during his military career. (He doesn't have them anymore; he left them at the Memorial.) He has scars all over his body, literally from head to toe, but the scars inside are worse. There's something a little broken in him - I suspect there is in all combat vets - and I think it's probably not really fixable. Today before work, we were watching the news where they talked about the parade here in Las Vegas. (Hey, Las Vegas has a parade! I don't think the last town I lived in did that much.) This year the parade is dedicated to Vietnam vets, to give them the welcome home they didn't get thirty years ago. I told Irish he should be in it and he just shrugged. Then he said, "When I came home back then, they shot at me and spit at me and threw shit at me. Fuck 'em now." I don't suppose anyone will ever convince him that people don't think that way anymore, that what he did - not just his two tours of duty but the entire decade of his life that he gave to this country - means something to some people. The way this day slides by anymore, maybe he's right.
But I'm still - I don't know - silly enough? Cheesy enough? To want to honor and thank our vets, even though I generally just say "Happy Veterans Day". Thanks to Great-uncle Bill in England (WWI), Grampa Gene (WWII-Navy), Uncle Ed and Uncle Bill (WWII-Navy), Grampa Carl (Korea-Army), Irish and cousin Roger (Vietnam-USMC and Army), cousin Wesley (peacetime-Navy) and also to my friends and those whom I don't know.
That's the rant for the year. It tends to be an annual thing. *g* Back to fandom now.