“Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America–not on the battlefields of Vietnam.” – Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980).

I’ve always viewed war through a set of lenses that attempt to block out or filter biases from “back home”.  The views of the American soldiers returning from Vietnam, for instance, was one of hatred, distrust, disgust, and outright dissapointment.  What is often grossly overlooked, however, is the fact that these soldiers did exactly what they were supposed to do, day after day, month after month – one gruelling battle after another.  History books, both military-based and otherwise, will show that through a vast majority of large encounters in Vietnam between the North Vietnamese and American/South Vietnamese soldiers, the guys returning home were the prevailing party.  These soldiers fought and died for the people that spat on them.  They fought and died for the people that called them “baby-killer”.  They fought and died for people who had little to no respect for them.  I believe we are forever indebted to these people.  These are veterans.  They are our veterans.

Although I missed it by a couple of weeks, I wanted to post the following in relation to Veteran’s day:

What is a Veteran?

 
Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg – or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.You can’t tell a vet just by looking.He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.She – or he – is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.He is the POW who went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat – but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

He is the parade – riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies
unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket – palsied now and aggravatingly slow – who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being – a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, “THANK YOU“.

“It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the
freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag.”

Father Denis Edward O’Brien/USMC