Veteran's Day Reflection

I don’t know if Veteran’s Day is a day to be “celebrated,” but it’s certainly a day to be honored.

As the generations have rolled by, we have become more and more desensitized to war and to the responsibility involved in being a part of our military.


Today, in 2010, I can go to GameStop or any other retail outlet and purchase literally dozens of video games that will allow me to pretend that I’m a soldier, pilot, or sailor engaged in the throes of battle. And if I get wounded or killed…oh well, I’ll just start the game over. I can go to Blockbuster or Netflix and rent one of HUNDREDS of movies that attempts to portray the gut-wrenching and gut-spilling details of hand-to-hand combat. But as gory and emotional as those pictures can be, we can still get up, push “Stop” and “Eject,” and go on about our lives.


But today, halfway around the world, there is no “Stop” or “Eject” button. It’s not a movie, it’s not a game, and it sure isn’t fun.

Today, in 2010, parents shudder at the thought of their 16-year old son or daughter getting behind the wheel of a car and driving off into traffic. As parents, we do our best impersonation of a hovercraft as we follow our children everywhere making sure they cross every “T” and dot every “I”. As parents (and I’m the WORST at this), we enable our children’s laziness by exempting them from chores and other tasks that, a generation ago, were just part of everyday life. And when a teenager expresses interest in joining the military versus going to college, many of us wrinkle our noses, scratch our heads and think, “Really? Why would you choose to go that route?”

Yet 70 years ago, kids that same age were storming beaches, toting automatic weapons and flying airplanes with tons of explosives. Boys who were 13-years old were lying about their age just to have the opportunity to join the fight for freedom. Many of them never came home. Some of their bodies were never found. Some of them were so badly destroyed it wasn’t worth sending them home to their families to be buried. Instead, they were buried at sea. Or they were buried in mass graves. Or they were buried by foreigners in towns whose names you can’t pronounce. They never got to live the “American Dream” – never had a 401K or a house with a white picket fence. They never vacationed in the Bahamas, Cancun or Disneyworld. They never got to grow up or grow old.

The ones who did come home returned with visions burned in their memory. Visions of holding their best friend as he breathed his last; visions of the look in another man’s eyes as he was engaged in a kill-or-be-killed moment; visions of sleepless nights, exhausting marches, pain and suffering. Visions that, even today, bring tears to the eyes of a 90-year old man.

So today, in 2010, I’m tapping away on a laptop in a beautiful house with a great family and all the food I can stuff in my face. Today is Veteran’s Day…but tomorrow should be Veteran’s Day as well. And the next day…and the next day…and the next day…