Our generation is really great about honoring those who served; Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and 9/11 are filled with parades, ceremonies and social media love. Thankfully we live in a time where it’s valued to remember and express gratitude for the millions of men and women who have served, and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom. But is that enough?
It’s easy to give a token veteran thank you shout-out on Facebook, but how much do we really understand what we are saying thank you for? I interviewed the three veterans in my life to ask them about their differing military experiences, and what they would want the future generation to remember about veterans.
My father, father-in-law and brother were only 17-18 when they enlisted. Perhaps adults by legal standards, but in the mind of a mother still a child, and barely equipped for the horrors they would see in four years of service. When they got out, at 21-22, they had already seen far more bloodshed, political corruption and evil than most civilians will see in a lifetime. That kind of trauma is enough to send a mature adult into therapy, and they were just young men!
My Father
In a time where men were sweating the draft, my father voluntarily enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1966. He went to boot camp the fall after high school graduation, and six months later he was sent to Vietnam at the center of the war’s intensity, now known as the Tet Offensive. As a radio man at only 19 he was responsible for ground communication, calling in air strikes, and was able to prevent the enemy from overrunning his company’s position multiple times.
In ten months in Vietnam, my father saw both carnage and valor. He saved countless lives and his own was protected by young comrades in situations where they were outnumbered 30 to 300. After his tour was up and he returned state-side, my father had a year on base to decompress from the war before he decided to return to civilian life. Like many servicemen at the time, he endured persecution by war protesters, and even his friends misunderstood all he had been through. But, thankfully he had a loving and proud family who considered him a hero.
My Father-In-Law
My father-in-law went into the Navy in 1963 to escape trouble at home. He served in Vietnam, but unlike my own father, was not in combat. As Naval Intelligence, he was protected and shielded from the worst parts of the war. While he heard about and sometimes saw death, he rarely had any personal connection with it. The worst trauma he endured was after his release, back on home soil. In 1967, anti-war rioting was at an all-time high, and my father-in-law stepped off the bus right in the middle of it. He was called a baby killer, spit upon, and cursed by onlookers, and when he arrived home, it wasn’t much better. His own father ignored him, and neighbors and friends avoided him like the plague.
In his own words, “sometimes God uses the bad to make good things happen for others.” All the military training my father-in-law received helped him become what he is today, a decorated Sheriff’s officer in California. He has seen more hand-to-hand combat, death and moral depravity in his forty-five years of service there than he ever did in Vietnam.
My Brother
As a child, my brother wanted to follow in our father’s footsteps. He wore fatigues and played war, dreaming of someday being an officer. In his own words, “a career in the Marine Corps was the only thing I could see myself doing.” So he enlisted in 1992, and less than a month after high school graduation, he left for boot camp.
While technically serving in an era of “peace and prosperity,” compared to the level of intensity our father saw in Vietnam, my brother, a USMC infantry rifleman, was sent to the front lines on several covert and dangerous operations. One of which included being a “concentration camp guard,” as he called it, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Along with his company of 200 fellow Marines, they defended their battalion camp against 40,000 rioting refugee migrants, forced to fight them hand-to-hand.
This and other experiences changed my brother’s view of the military, and crushed his childhood dreams of a career there. When his enlistment was up, he went on to pursue a college education and a career elsewhere.
I asked my three vets what they would want children to remember about veterans, and here are some key things that stood out to me:
- “Freedom comes with a price, and everyone should serve their country and pay back the freedom they enjoy.”
- “Veterans are not that different from everyone else.”
- “It was and still is an honor to have served. Same applies to law enforcement. It’s easy to serve your own needs, but to be able to give for others is what God wanted of us; to deny one’s self and lay down your life for another, as the motto goes, ‘we the few, the brave who serve the proud.’”
- “A veteran should be thanked whenever you see one. A ‘welcome home’ and ‘thank you for your service’ are the greatest words and reward a veteran can hear.”
These are just three stories from the vets in my own life. I would encourage you this Veterans Day to teach and model for your children what remembrance holidays are really about. Take them to the parades, let them see you thanking a veteran, and watch you shake hands. But also, encourage them to get a little more personal. Honor the sacrifices of the vets you know by asking for their stories, or how they viewed their service. Finally, hold those babies tight, for each vet you meet is someone’s child, and some day it could be yours telling these stories.
What does your family do to celebrate Veterans Day? If you are a veteran, what do YOU want children today to know?
