I taught high school for thirty-six years and college level classes for more than a decade in my career. I had several foreign exchange students over the course my time as a teacher and one of them was a petite, blonde, cute, incredibly good looking Norwegian girl named Anya. Watching the boys in the hall following her was like watching a mother duck leading her ducklings. Every exchange student had the same questions about America, among them were: Why do you let people drive so young? Why do you forbid people from drinking alcohol until they are 21? Why do you eat what you eat and so much of it too? And, why do you have “days” for everything? I’m reminded of an occasion from the mid 1980’s, I announced to the class when an assignment was due reminding them, we had a Wednesday off for Veteran’s Day. Anya piped up quizzically and innocently, “Shouldn’t that be every day?”
Exchange students and the children of immigrants know instinctively what we have here. There are things and ways that are so second nature to native born Americans that we can’t see them anymore for what they actually are and really mean. The freedoms, the choices, the liberties and the privileges that we take for granted daily are more limited or even unknown in other parts of the world.
Americans used to pride themselves on their “citizen army”. Of course, there have always been a cadre of professional military personnel who made up the core of the American Armed Forces but in times of crisis it was the merchant, farmer, student, civil servant etc. who gave up their cushy civilian lives to spend time fighting for the United States against whatever enemy happened to be stupid or hubristic enough to raise their metaphorical hand against us. Once the war, conflict or crisis was over – the men (for much of our history) would go back to their lives, families, farms and businesses. The military would then shrink in size again until the next catastrophic world event jolted the nation, causing citizens once again to answer the call of their country.
George Washington gained praise, admiration, respect and wonder when he turned in his commission and disbanded the Army in favor of democratic government and civilian control. Nearly a century later, hundreds of thousands of Americans answered Lincoln’s call to give, “…their last full measure of devotion…” in the conflict called at that time, “The War Between The States” – what we now know as the Civil War. Doughboys fought in American uniforms in the “The Great War”, also known as “The War To End All Wars” because surely no one would be so foolish as to ever cause a world conflagration again. It was only after Hitler marched on Europe and the Japanese subjugated Asia that the “Great War” became known as World War One. More than sixteen million Americans served in the Armed Services in World War Two with over a quarter of a million giving their lives to end of the reign of terror and tyranny and so, it goes….
My Great-Uncle Chester had been an American doughboy in the trenches in World War One, was gassed and taken prisoner. My Great-Grandma Archer, suffering from dementia, never knew me. She thought I was her son Chester. I did my best to play along with her when we visited as she tried to reminisce with me as Chester. When I stumbled and got a detail wrong, she would say to the others in the room, “Chester was gassed in the War you know. He’s never been the same since.” My Dad’s older brother, my Uncle Thorwald, had been an artilleryman at the Pusan Perimeter during the dark early days of the Korean War, a fact I only learned after he died although I did know he was an Army veteran. My Dad served in Korea too, but at the tail end of hostilities in country and not in action. Later, I had older cousins who served in peace time and younger cousins who would see active duty and combat in the Gulf Wars years later. So, I thought it was my duty to serve my country. It would be an honor. I also thought the GI Bill would help pay for college after my hitch was up, so I went to the recruiter’s office.
I came of age at a time when the draft had just ended and the all voluntary army was getting started. I went to the Air Force recruiter first. I wanted to fly Air Force fighter jets. I told the recruiter that and he laughed at me. It wasn’t a smirky, sanctimonious, “how dare you” laugh but rather a belly laugh ripped spontaneously from him. The kind of laugh that when you see someone guffawing like that you must laugh along with them even though you don’t know what they’re laughing about. I knew what he was laughing at – me – so I didn’t join in. When he recovered himself, he said, “Kid, I’m sorry. You’re just too tall and too blind to fly for the Air Force. You’ll never be a pilot.” I did have thick glasses and they were made of glass then – none of this plastic polymer stuff. My glasses were so thick that in elementary school the other students would borrow them to try and burn ants. I don’t know if they were successful because I needed my glasses to find my glasses.
The Air Force recruiter saw how dejected I was and so he sent me to the Navy next door with the comment, “The Navy flies planes too.” The Navy recruiter was kinder but said essentially the same thing as the Air Force recruiter. I considered the Marines but didn’t think I was tough enough. The Army seemed ready to take me despite by “Coke bottle glasses” until, under routine questioning, I mentioned my heart murmur. That was that.
The military used to be an outlet for those drifting, the delinquent and the derelict as well as for the truly patriotic. Governor Bill Janklow would routinely drag me down to his office to yell at me for sixty minutes every week when I was a leader of the Democrats in the South Dakota Legislature. We eventually got to be frenemies. He told me the Marine Corps changed his life. He said he was a wild, delinquent kid and the judge gave him a choice – go to prison or join the Marines. Bill joined the Marines and that put him on the path to success. As any Marine will tell you, there is no such thing as an “ex-Marine”. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Bill Janklow was proud of his service and proud of where that service led him – and rightfully so too.
The military used to bring droves of diverse young people together from all parts of the country and all walks of life and mold them into a cohesive, patriotic group ready to do what must be done to safeguard the country and all we hold dear. The military still does that of course, but now the people are self-selecting since they are all volunteers and no longer include reluctant draftees. Because people now choose the military, as opposed to being drafted, we are less concerned as a nation about their deployment and the use of American military force. I think that is an unfortunate development. While the United States shouldn’t be hesitant to protect our people and our national interest by using our military, but neither should we poke our nose into every other country’s business or be the world’s policeman at the drop of a hat either.
November 11th is Veteran’s Day. It began as Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War One. We owe our freedoms, liberties, lifestyle, security etc. to those men and women who have answered our country’s call throughout the years. We owe so much to those who have gone before and to those currently serving. Those who fought and died as well as those who were prepared to do so but were never called on to face combat or the ultimate sacrifice. We owe all we have; all we cherish and our children’s future to those we call “Veterans”.
My exchange student Anya, from nearly forty years ago now, was oblivious to her exotic appeal and her attractiveness for the red blooded, hormonal high school American male. However, she was incredibly perceptive when it came to Veterans, realizing their importance to Americans individually and to our country collectively when she asked, “Shouldn’t it be Veteran’s Day every day?” Yes, it should.
Thank a Veteran for their service, for their time away from family and for dealing with sights, sounds and experiences that the rest of us – hopefully – will never have to deal with because they stood in our stead on the ramparts of democracy and strode the battlefields of strife defending freedom and the United States of America. God Bless Veterans!