Personal thoughts on Veteran's Day...

I grew up playing Army (and cowboys and indians.) From the time I was small my favorite toys were guns - all types of guns - and there are successive Christmas pictures of "little Jimmy" with Western pistols, Winchester rifles and faux M-16s.  My favorite TV shows (after "The Lone Ranger" of course) were "Combat" and "The Gallant Men." Later I branched out to celebrate "Danger Man," "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and eventually "The Prisoner."  I used to get up early on Saturday mornings to watch "The Big Picture" because I was fascinated by the way ordinary men (and they were mostly men in those days) faced incomprehensible challenges in wartime.
All of my uncles spent time in the military - mostly Army and Navy - but not my dad.  He had a student deferment for college during the Korean War and soon after I was born making him exempt.  So we never talked much about military service in our house and I think it was mostly for this reason. In our immediate experience, the armed services was only a distant fact of life.  To be sure, we were a traditional Republican suburban family - I remember learning to sing "I Like IKE" songs during President Eisenhower's second campaign for president - but I don't recall much talk about honoring or even supporting America's military.  There was a far greater buzz about the Civil Rights movement - as well as Elvis Presley, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor - or the latest TV shows during those days.  I don't have any memories of our family honoring Veteran's Day nor do I recall any insights coming from my elementary schools.  For the most part, except for TV shows, the world of soldiers and sailors was invisible in my childhood.

The escalating war in Vietnam changed all of that:  the nightly news that we watched while eating dinner before my father came home showed more and more clips of combat action.  And as the war intensified, so did the domestic protests.  My parents were a part of Nixon's so-called "silent majority" who supported America's war against communism and resented those who raised questions.  They were certain that those who protested were either dupes for communist front groups or else malcontents who didn't know how good they had it in America.  And while they weren't happy about the prospects of their first born son being drafted, if it happened they expected me to suck it up like my uncles did and do my duty to God and country.

The only place I remember the war being discussed was at church.  In our youth group, we played protest songs and discussed them on Sunday mornings.  I remember right after "Sgt. Pepper" came out having a passionate argument in Sunday School over the morality of the Vietnam War.  Most of the older high school youth were in support of the war while my peers were increasingly in the opposition. It was in these Sunday School gathers that I first began to wrestle with what is moral and immoral as a follower of Jesus.  My youthful analysis was not nuanced or particularly deep in those days, but with many of those who came of age in the 60s, we started to reject militarism.  And sadly this also meant that many of us became opponents of the people who wore the military uniforms. 

One week there was a massive fight in our home about my rejection of the Vietnam War - and my decision NOT to march in the Memorial Day parade in my Boy Scout uniform. It was an ugly argument that raged for days and in the end I was forced to participate.  But after the parade, I walked back home and burned my uniform in our back yard to make it clear to my father that I would never be forced to act against my conscience again.  The battle lines in our house became highly visible after that incident.  It was about shortly after that burning that I began thinking and reading about what I would do in relation to the draft.  In time, after a great deal of preparation and prayer, I registered as a Conscientious Objector. I was seeking non-combatant status and was trying to steel myself for the likelihood of prison if my application was rejected.

During all of this, I knew that I had an obligation to serve my country - I wasn't interested in running away to Canada - and I would have accepted combat status as a medic if things had worked out that way. To be sure, that terrified me, but after any and all appeals, I was clear that I would serve my nation in a way that simultaneously affirmed my religious convictions.  As it worked out, I was granted non-combatant status but never called for service. (But that's another whole story.) Now what hits me today in remembering all of this is how it never once occurred to me - or anyone else involved in my searching - to explore my conscientious objection within the context of what was best for my country.  It was all about me - a highly personal quest - what did my ethics and my moral conscience tell me was the best action?  That means that most of my awareness about the military world was shaped by personal and abstract moral concepts.

It wasn't until people like John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans Against

the War that I saw a human face on the US military.  Springsteen's songs about returning vets also helped me shift from abstract ethical constructs to the facts of life for real working class kids. A rash of self-critical movies like "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket" created a climate for talking about war and military service from the perspective of real people.  I remember "Coming Home" as the first movie that helped me understand both the call to serve and the horrible consequences that active duty means for so many real people. Still, for another generation America chose to hide from the consequences of war and service and allowed many of our vets to become anonymous homeless men living under our bridges at the edges of our cities and towns.  In time, we began to build monuments to their sacrifice and groups like Soldier On emerged to help us unlock our hearts and minds to the on-going responsibilities we have as a people to those who served in the armed forces.

For all these reasons and more, I never understood the value of our Veteran's Day.  It was no longer Armistice Day, a time to mark the end of WWI, it was different from Memorial Day, a holiday to honor our war dead.  No, this was about celebrating the contributions of all those who served American in the armed forces.  But because these women and men had been largely invisible to me for most of my life, Veteran's Day seemed like just one more random excuse for a long weekend.
But not any more.  Now, because I KNOW women and men in the service, it has become a holy day set aside to remember the deep gifts of time, courage and blood that our service women and men have shared with us all.  It has also become a time to express gratitude my gratitude to them as well.  It is a time to learn and relearn the history of what these warriors endured, not in a romantic or pseudo-patriotic way, but in ways that are honest and compassionate. Jimmy Carter, himself a veteran of the US Navy, once put it like this as president: It is a time to recall the sacrifices that our armed forces have offered to the world. It is also a time to note that all war, no matter how necessary, is always an evil.  We can never make the world a safer place by killing our enemies children.

It is now a sober and tender holiday for me - and well it should be. (check it out @ http://act.ucc.org/site/ MessageViewer?dlv_id= 78181& em_id=57241.0)