Veterans Day Musing…

11/11/2005

Paul Munnis

As we approach this Veterans Day a lot of things are running through my mind and I’ll try to organize them here.

There are over 50 million people who have served in the Armed Forces of the United States. The reason the number is so high is that we used to have a mandatory draft in America and if you were an able-bodied male you served a minimum of two years in the Army. If you shirked that duty then you went to jail; it was just as simple as that. So when you turned 18 you had some decisions to make. If you looked at mortality tables in those days the number one threat to your life was the U.S. government who had troops committed to combat all over the globe. Yet, you had to serve.

For my generation, not everyone could afford to attend college or could even be admitted into college. The working man’s wages were low and the cost of attending college was high, loan programs were unaffordable or you could not qualify because you had no income and the military offered little by way of educational benefit. Later it did, the Veterans GI Bill allowed survivors to go for specialized training, but that came much later.

The economic depression had just ended and people did not have money stashed to send their kids off to college. Even credit cards did not exist, the American economy was a cash and carry economy. Colleges were not geared up for large numbers of students anyhow and so admissions were constrained by space and resources and so you had to be pretty high on the testing ladder to gain admission or else darn well connected. Admission to college was truly competitive and even the cost of admissions testing was out of reach for many Americans..

At 18 the choices were just not that complicated for a male. For many of my generation it was just a question of Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines? A few weeks later you were getting all of your hair cut off, someone was yelling in your face, and life became regimented and progressively tougher. You got to meet people from the South who had awful education, had never owned a pair of shoes, and who came from subsistence farms. You saw a new face of America as you came to know and work with these people and you also came to know America. Your drill instructors made things clear to you, “there is a war on, your job is to kill the enemy and you are moving into an environment of “kill or be killed.” They suggested that you might want to develop the skills needed to survive. We all got the message.

We survived our basic training and even more advanced combat training and some went on to specialized military training schools and then we reported to our units where the old pros showed us the real way to manage things, how to win wars, and how to survive. We learned and we survived, thanks to them. Later we brought those skills home and to work and we put men on the moon, invented computers, and literally moved mountains. America became the best place in the world to live as a result.

But not all of us made out so well while in service. Many of us were chosen to be grave-side and burial detail escorts to our fellow soldiers who were killed in the military and it left us in amazement at all of the ways that a soldier could be killed or injured. Later, as we were either involved in visiting friends in military hospitals or being patients in them ourselves, we wondered if the dead were not luckier than some of the wounded whom we came to know and love as brothers who had been horribly maimed.

To us, the Purple Heart has a special meaning and we were plenty angry at the 2004 GOP Convention stunt where a fellow Minnesotan gave out Purple Heart Band-Aids and mocked John Kerry’s wounds, and also left us angry to see people like John Kerry, John McCain, and Max Cleland, run down for their combat service and combat injuries and we were pained to witness their Purple Hearts mocked. That caused me to hold a special grudge in my heart for the GOP and it will likely last the rest of my life. It has certainly roused me to work against the GOP. Other Vets have shared with me their anger at this too. In Minnesota it has resulted in a special Caucus of DFL Vets determined to oust the GOP from government forever. We have something new to fight for.

Death and injury comes to soldiers in so many ways and not all are combat related. For example, training exercises must be realistic and they are and so people get hurt, injured, maimed, and killed while just rehearsing for combat. Then there is the unlucky guy that gets hit by a vehicle as he is returning to his unit. People who jump out of aircraft ready for immediate combat upon landing risk a lot of injury during their training cycle. Soldiers are subject to every problem that can kill or injure civilians. Then you meet men with shattered nervous systems and permanent mental illness brought on by bombardment and stress of a kind that most people cannot even imagine. You come to understand how the mind shuts out stress by just shutting down and quitting.

So when you hear that the president of the U.S.A. wants to end Veterans Benefits you might think that it brings an automatic response of “No Way!” For those who were injured or killed in military service and for the survivor families, that is exactly the response one gets from me. Yet I also know that the program has been generous and that some fellow Vets who do not have service related disabilities or who have good health coverage, are receiving government benefits that they do not need. I know the old soldiers are dying off and that Veterans needs are declining. So, I don’t necessarily get angry about program cuts. I just want to make sure the cuts are fair, that the people who need and deserve the benefits are truly getting them and that none of the jerks who are mocking Purple Hearts that fellow Vets have earned are in charge or are profiting. 

All that I ask for is fairness, compassion, understanding, and a certain amount of appreciation for service that was rendered by those who were injured or killed. When that’s lacking, as it has been with this present set of GOP neo-cons, then I get upset and determined to work real hard against them.

I will end by saying that I have asked myself if I had to serve all over over again would I do so? The answer is a direct and unqualified: “Yes.”

Over the years, like many Vets I have come to identify what are called “chicken-hawks,” those who wrap themselves in the flag, hang out all kinds of bumper stickers, wear flag lapel pins, wave American flags and mount car magnets shouting “Support Our Troops,” men who should be ashamed of themselves as they let real men do the dirty work for them while they work to deprive those who have served of their needed benefits and bitch about having to pay for their kids to attend school because it deprives them of a new SUV.

To my fellow Vets who are the real reason that America is great: “I salute you, and may God bless you and your families.”