Veterans Day

I will wear my ribbons today, even though most of them don’t mean anything to me except my Combat Action Ribbon and sea service deployment ribbon with a star. (The others were “gimmes,” as I call them. Here’s a Presidential Unit Citation for staying alive. Here’s a medal for being a Reservist who actually deployed – congratulations on just doing your job.) I will pin them to my chest with a mixture of pride, anger, and embarrassment.

I will be proud of my service to my country and its defense. I’m most proud of how, in some existential way, I’ve defended the constitution by enlisting and I’ve helped secure and protect the great freedoms we have in America or for other peoples around the world. I’m an artist. The first amendment means more to me than anything that has ever been codified in English. I would grab a rifle again anytime if the Department of Defense ever failed or tyranny somehow invaded our Democracy, and a new power tried to silence me.

I will be angry that we’re still in Afghanistan with a strategy that I find suspect at best. If we want to win this war, then let’s do it. If we’re just trying to prevent a resurgence of terrorist activity from coming to America again, then let’s just do that – we’d only need several thousand Special Forces and support troops on the ground for that strategy. But this middle ground, this gray area of political tomfoolery and waffling, is only causing a wastage of human life; the daily passing of men and woman whom I still regard as brothers and sisters. I will also be mad about the suicide of eighteen veterans a day.

And I will be embarrassed. Still ashamed of the fact I didn’t do more. I will feel inadequate when comparing my story to the sacrifices of so many others who’ve endured battle after battle, seeing combat on hundreds of occasions now. Do you realize that we’ve been at war for almost ten years now? The character of the men who continue to reenlist and sign up truly humbles me. That’s a fortitude and bravery I can’t comprehend. I will wear my ribbons to draw attention to their sacrifices. Someone has to care for them because they don’t have any sense of self.

I’ve got a whole four stacks of ribbons – sometimes we called them salad bowls because of the bright colors. I performed satisfactory when taking fire and I went where my country needed me. I’m proud, angry, and embarrassed. It’s too much emotion to have, because it’s not really my day.

This one’s for the men in the fighting holes in southern Afghanistan right now. This one’s for Corporal Dunham. This one’s for the men I miss and remember every day. This one’s for the men and women I will never meet. Cheers.

~ Semper Fi ~

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