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Jackpine Radical Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:28 PM
Original message
Veterans days always make me feel weird,
especially when someone says "Thank you for your service." You see, I was an infantryman in Vietnam, but I did not serve willingly. I was drafted, forced into a deadly form of involuntary servitude, and whatever illusions I might originally have had about the rightness of the war were quickly shorn from me when I saw what we were doing to the innocent people, the sacred soils, the beautiful waters and jungles and mountains of that tormented land.

"No, don't thank me," I want to say. "Forgive me. Forgive me for participating in that awful event in your name. If you must thank me for something, then thank me for joining the movement to stop the war when I got home. Maybe thank me for the things I have tried to do for the castoffs of society--the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled, the emotionally damaged products of chaotic and abusive homes who have gone on to fill our jails and prisons. But don't thank me for going off to participate in the destruction of a foreign land whose residents never intended any harm to you or me."
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NightWatcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:36 PM
Response to Original message
1. "thanks for your service" is what they say when they dont know what to say
I know what you mean about feeling conflicted. I worked in Chimpy's early DoD OIG and was not proud about what we did in the OBVIOUS BUILDUP to Iraq, Afghanistan and others (that were being planned as early as March 01)

The "thanks for your service" is just a head nod from people who dont know what they want to say or how to say it, but are glad that you are still alive and put your ass on the line for them, their freedom, or whatever jingoistic mantra they have been taught.

<head nod>
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XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:53 PM
Response to Reply #1
8. I say "thanks for your service"
because it is impossible to know how the person feels about his or her service.

For a person to put his or her life out there in the armed forces is meaningful, irrespective of the feelings involved.
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ShortnFiery Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:36 PM
Response to Original message
2. My father expressed similar sentiment about the killing he was forced to do.
He received a battlefield commission when he independently dodged arty fire and maneuvered up a steep hill to kill three Nazis in a machine gun nest.

He told me about it when he was in his 70s. He looked at me as said, "I had to shoot them! It was either me or them, I had no choice. One young man didn't look over 16 years old and after he fell his helmet fell off and was rolling down the hill. I can still hear that helmet in my dreams ... rolling down the hill as those three men lay there dead. I cried out to the young Nazi, 'You never did anything to me!'"

Although Dad went on to spend a career in the military, he never exalted war or killing. He told me that War was HELL. When I looked into his eyes, I believed him 100%.
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XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #2
9. My god
:(
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Texasgal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:43 PM
Response to Reply #2
21. My grandfather told me
that he had horrible nightmares about killing a japanese soilder that was in a tree, he said he always thought about his family and what he would have become.

I am PROUD of my grandpa though, he overcame alot and had to deal with the death of others that have haunted him for life.
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The River Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:38 PM
Response to Original message
3. As Long As You Have
forgiven yourself it doesn't matter what we say.
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DiverDave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:39 PM
Response to Original message
4. Used to be called "Armistice Day"
To remind folks that war was wrong.
Being a vet, I'm torn, I'd like it to be about that, but, honoring those that gave the "last full measure of devotion" should be done too.
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UTUSN Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:40 PM
Response to Original message
5. K&R #3 for, I volunteered but was not willing
Thanks for saying a non-PC thing. CHEENEE with his "Help os on he way" DISGUSTS me. Think what Shrub, HANNITY, and O'LOOFAH do for me.
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cynatnite Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:44 PM
Response to Original message
6. You could have ran and didn't...
You still put on the uniform even though you were drafted. My stepDad wanted to run to Canada and he didn't. His rationalization was that maybe he kept someone else out of uniform by going.

I don't know. I think we all rationalize it differently.

I feel weird about it, too. It wasn't wartime when I was in the Army so I feel I really didn't do anything. The Army made me grow up so in some ways I feel like I owe them. I wouldn't have the life I have now.
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Obamanaut Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:47 PM
Response to Original message
7. Another K and R. I joined in 1960 because it looked like the only
way for a future for me. I had not prepared for college because we were poor, and I wanted to get away from a dysfunctional family.

It was not an overpowering sense of patriotism, nor a desire to hurt people. As it turned out I stayed 28 years, got the college, got a wife (still have the same one) and two daughters.

Welcome home. And as another DUer said upthread <head nod>
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jaysunb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 09:58 PM
Response to Original message
10. I felt exactly like this for years.
Did just like you and protested after I got home, and to this day remain highly critical of the people and policies that got me/us there in the first place.
That's why I do everything I can to advocate for withdrawal from Iraq & Afghanistan. I can't rewrite history, so I try hard to keep others from repeating it.

Give yourself a break. Find a way to use your first hand knowledge of war to advocate peace.

Be well. :hi:
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Jackpine Radical Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:05 PM
Response to Reply #10
14. I have been involved in the peace movement for every war since I got out of Vietnam.
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jaysunb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. Well, you've been busy !
LOL !

I think I knew you had, but it needed to be said.
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Jackpine Radical Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:12 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. You made me realize I'm probably exaggerating. I missed Grenada entirely.
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jaysunb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:34 PM
Response to Reply #17
20. LOL !
:rofl:
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Grey Donating Member (933 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:03 PM
Response to Original message
11. I have trouble with "Veterans Day"....
When we think about all the harm War has done to our family, over generations. The War for Independence, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War 1, World War 2, The Korean War, Vietnam, Kosivo, Afghanistan. For the first time in hundreds of years we don't have a close family member in any conflicts. We don't have to worry about the mental or physical harm done for some "National Pride" or "The War for Oil" nonsense. I stay home alone and remember the damaged lives and mental scars inflected by war and mourn the bright promise of "What could have been". I fail to see the "glory of War" or the value of such sacrifice.

I do thank you for joining the movement to stop the war and doing what you can to make this world a kinder place.
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Grey Donating Member (933 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:03 PM
Response to Original message
12. "....Dupe- delete, sorry
Edited on Wed Nov-11-09 10:04 PM by Grey
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ThomCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:03 PM
Response to Original message
13. I always have this desire to thank vets for surviving,
and hope they are against war.

"Thank you for serving" seeing to be validating the idea that wars have been good or necessary.
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Sarah Ibarruri Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:05 PM
Response to Original message
15. I always thought it might make some servicemen feel really bad
I think the govt needs to stop giving a holiday to veterans, and start supporting them financially when their bodies and mind are destroyed thanks to the wishes and wants of the war-mongers we elect into office.
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MajorChode Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:15 PM
Response to Original message
18. I never say, "Thank you for your service."
A friend of mine was a B-17 bomber pilot with the Eighth Air Force in WWII. He never talks about the actual bomb dropping and I'll never ask. On rare occasions he might mention a crew that went down, never to return, but I don't ask about those either. Mostly he just talks about the day to day drudgery and the flying aspect. How one would even begin to thank a guy like that, I'll never know, but I sure as hell ain't going to try with a trite phrase. I just listen when he wants to talk, but I never press him for much details.
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chill_wind Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-11-09 10:16 PM
Response to Original message
19. Thank you then
Edited on Wed Nov-11-09 10:18 PM by chill_wind
instead for holding it together, for joining that movement when you got home, and most of all for finding purpose and meaning in giving of yourself in the special kinds of work since, that not everyone else in this world is meant or able and willing to do. That's not what this day is about, I know, or what you even meant, but it's a good chance to say again how much the world needs so many more of you, Jackpine Radical, and way fewer chickenhawks. Always.
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