Do Something for Our Vets

It's memorial day so if you want to do something to remember our fallen veterans, you may just want to start with yourself.

By Roy D. Follendore III

May 29, 2006

Somehow, by being a soldier, wife to a soldier or parent of a soldier, or perhaps even by sacrificing yourself to the general nationalistic will of others, you may think that you are doing your duty. By supporting the decision of your son or daughter, your husband or wife, or best friend to go to war you may think that makes you special. But a lot of us have already been there and done that. Yes, you too may have gave away your precious time to be with your beloved family members, and some veterans may have even actually been rewarded by rows of shiny metals. Those multitudes who have experienced this know that eventually all those trinkets will eventually mean little or nothing to anyone except except as tarnished memories and memories not medals are all we really ever have.

You may think that because you are a veteran, America owes you something more than this ambiguous notion of gratitude you may be receiving. In spite of this, the fact remains that regardless of the current sentiments of our nation you will inevitably and eventually find that America doesn't owe you anything. After all, it wasn’t really some nationalistic notion of America who chose to put you into the situation you now exist in, or for that matter the situation that you were once in. "America" did not ask you to make the decisions that you have made. America is not a creature that speaks. America is not the Statue of Liberty, nor is it Uncle Sam point his finger in your face. America is a lot of people with a lot of different opinions. America as a whole would just as well burn the American flag and crush the ashes into the dust as cover every street lamp in flags and yellow ribbons.

There is a group of Americans that are willing to tell the truth. Veterans did gave you the opportunity to know the truth about war even though you may not have been willing to listen. Each potential soldier and family member is free to choose to listen to what they want to believe. Yes, you may have been one of the many who actually believed in the shallow recruiting propaganda that the Army, or the Marine Corps, or the Navy, or Air Force were so willing to tell. If you joined it would not be an even bet that the first day in boot camp your drill sergeants explained the military reality. The point is that it was in their interest for you to believe in nationalistic notions so that they could get you to sign up. The dream of fighting for ones country is an easy sell because it is so easy to make beautiful the notions of killing. Many of you who now know better may even still be so willing to listening to the beat of war. The thought of war is a dangerous thrill and deep down we are all wanting to listen to it.

Yes, we all do need to believe in something that fulfills us. We want to know that which makes us feel like we are doing something. We want to contribute and wear the uniform that says that we are contributing. We are all compelled to believe in flag filled propaganda. But most of all we all want to belong to something bigger than us. Yes, some of us find that we don't need to wear a uniform to contribute through belonging. Maybe that is the difference between those who do and do not have those little American flag pins attached to their lapels. Some of us are proud of what we can actually accomplish, without a uniform or that little metal red, white and blue flag. Some of us don't have to join party or a religion to do the right thing. We don't need to be told what to think, or the right and wrong ways to have sex. We don't need a moral majority telling us who our enemies are. Maybe we contributors to popular opinion best contribute as we think about what it is that we have been doing.

Even those who have been in the hell of middle eastern deserts, those recent veterans who at times hated their voluntary choice of participation still can't comprehend the fact that instead of the Presidential 'Mission Accomplished" we have simply interjected ourselves into the middle of a ten thousand year tribal civil war. They can not accept that fact that this war was a terrific mistake, not just because of all of the harm that it is doing to innocent people. They do not want to believe that it was a terribly mistaken approach, and an intentional misjudgment in the application of force. Most of all, those who have invested in this war, are blind to the fact that instead of destroying two dictatorial regimes with our most advanced weapons systems, we find ourselves inappropriately trying to use them to hold together the relationships of thousands of villages and tribes. They refuse to believe that instead of winning the objectives of this war, the were given the privilege of losing it and that those who believed with absolute certainty in this atmosphere of war were the ones who perpetrated our defeat in this war. One should not believe in the virtues of war, for there is nothing good that come from it.

Though the aftermath of this misbegotten war may not work out like we may think it should, perhaps none of us should worry too much about personally accepting the blame for all of the killing and destruction which we have initiated. Just like, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam, sooner or later, no one will care about the individuals who were involved in this fiasco. Certainly Congress, our Generals, our future Presidents or even our Veterans Administration will not care. You may believe totally in the system, and you may not want to look at history but for the sake of argument, this time do it anyway. Look at how and why the Veterans Administration came about. Look at what actually happened to all of those WWI Vets who came back from the battlefields of France. Look how they then had to confront General MacArthur in 1932, when he led a force of tanks, cavalry, and infantry against 15000 unarmed WWI Vets who had come to petition Congress. The message remains there and there is no reason to further argue this point because you will undoubtedly find this out for yourself soon enough.

When your sacrifices do begin to be forgotten, you shall know that you are not alone. After all of those compassionate yellow ribbons on all of those street poles have drooped and rotted, perhaps our remaining American veterans who were actually fortunate enough to remain alive will still be trying to make sense of the decisions that got them where they are. Like all of the other veterans they too will be trying to make sense of it all. And after all of the night sweats and out patient psychological counseling, those vets who don't decide to take 'the easy way out' though the use of drugs, booze, going insane or simply by committing suicide, will finally get around to accepting a single inevitable and basic fact. That they and we have wasted the best part of their lives attempting to prove that our world works like we think it should have been instead of how it actually is. Conflict is really an attempt to change the unchangeable.

Until this happens, we should have faith in the fact that some of our fellow veterans will eventually get around to the idea that war futile, that our world will always be populated by naive people who think and live differently than we would have them and that no matter how much we may think that we are right; this is as it always was, and always will be. We must take comfort in the fact that they, like me and you, will eventually get around to understanding that we really never help anything through the use of violence. There is always a consequence and there would always have been a better alternative, if only we were willing to see it. By this I am not saying that anyone should give up the notion of attempting to making the world a better place to live. What I am saying is that we all have to find something that is better than simplistic notions of right and wrong or the powerful and the powerless. If we do not understand this then it does become inevitable that we shall always be by our enemies.

There is a harsh reality that is now slowly dawning on my fellow American veterans. Until this revelation begins to be internalized and the reality of the veterans experiences become internalized, America will simply have to tolerate yet another generation of whining soldiers who once sold on the idea that they were emotionally and physically invincible, now know and must come to terms with the inevitability that this is not true. Yes they feel betrayed. They still want to believe and betray themselves again in the idea that our use of higher technology weapons of mass destruction was and is supposed to somehow be more ethical and moral than someone else who might use them. Some who believe this base their feelings on the foundation of their personal religious bigotism. Exactly like their so called enemies, some do feel that right or wrong God is always on the American side and our American notions of God is somehow superior than their notions of God. In my generation we were fighting those who we were told were Godless, while in fact they were often Catholic and Buddhists. Now it is being constantly pointed out that Muslim sense of God is not ours. But as any Vietnam Vet knows, as we get older, it becomes more and more convenient to forget that despite all of the atrocities that our enemies may have committed against us, 'God' is or should rightfully be on everyone's side.

It seems that the plows of war must turn this fact over every second generation. With this knowledge one might think that it may simply be the right moment to face up to the fact that collectively we have once again invested our future into another pointless war. No, we did not have a justifiable reason to destroy so many people's lives. The reality that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq means nothing to the contagious momentum of war. As with Vietnam, the spark that set off the war was an object called fear. Even at this moment, the lies and propaganda propagated by an orchestrated media, or the lack media continue its onslaught of false reporting. Like ravens the night after a battle, the movie and television programs that will sell us soap arrive to take full advantage of the backside of war. Yes, my dear fellow veterans, we have and we shall all learn again that war is really about having to wipe your best friend's brains off of our uniform. Yes, at its dark heart this war is about having a foot blown off so that everyone can tell you just how lucky you are to be alive. Yes, this war, like all other wars is also about having to live the rest of our lives with bad dreams about what we should or should not have done in that deadly split second.

My Step Father who was in the landings at Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge and who participated in the occupation of Germany once told me something that I did not forget. He said "try to forget it and get over it." This is what veterans must learn to do for the rest of their lives. I found that his medicine was good but hard to take.

The truth is that you will never forget, though at least while each of you try get over your experiences, at least you can take some solstice in the fact that as veterans we all remain in this mess together. As Americans we all exist in this mess whether we agree with the end result of this war or not. And yes, we are all in this mess together whether or not we happen to be the veterans who have directly participated in this war.

If any of you still actually want to do something for the rest of our so called 'heroes' then how about this: Put an end to all the propaganda and stop this fucking pointless war! Step out of your comfortable space and make a some simple statement, perhaps protest if it feels right. If you ever really wanted to be a true hero, at least have the guts to tell the truth! Tell your family the whole truth; not just the suffering that you have felt, the suffering that you still feel, but also the suffering that you have imposed on the lives of others. Even if you have not fired a shot, or dropped a bomb, as a veteran you contributed to the process. Perhaps you might even feel brave enough to anonymously put up a few black ribbons as a monument to mourning of our collective stupidity as a nation. Get a stamp and secretly put your message on walls. Do something to let someone know.

What ever you do, just stop hiding behind our collective stupidity, our hypocritical pride and most of all, our crimes under the guise of our American flag. There is already far too much darkness in the color of blue and too much blood in its color of red.

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