Honorable

My Mom visits me during Army basic training, Fort Lewis, October 1968

 

As I get older, I find myself ruminating on things.  I think it's a privilege of being a "senior" and I love it. 

 

Today is Veteran's Day, 2012.  I was drafted into the U.S. Army in September, 1968.  I spent most of 1969 in Vietnam, all expenses paid.  When I was discharged from the Army, the letter I got thanked me for honorably serving my country.  Truth is, however, I wondered then if I had done the honorable thing.  And even today I am still ruminating on that question.

 

In the 1960s, I thought the Vietnam war was a misadventure and I thought the draft was unfair.  Fifty years later, I still do.  Several million of us went there but 50,000 of us didn't come back.  Did we win anything?  Did we make the world safer?  I tear up when I visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC.  I agree with those who call it an angry black gash on the National Mall.

 

How would my life have turned out if I had gone to Canada in September 5, 1968, instead of the Army induction center, as I had considered?  How would I feel about that decision today?  Would I consider myself "honorable?"  I wonder.

 

But I didn't go to Canada.  In the end, it wasn't for any big, Save-The-World reason.  It was because I was too worried about how it would affect my mother.  How would she explain to her friends that her son had skipped the draft and fled to Vancouver?  She was a woman of the 1950s, always concerned about What The Neighbors Might Think.  I knew she'd be embarrassed some, but I also knew she'd be even more out-of-her-mind worried about me.  I'd be a fugitive from U.S. justice and could be arrested if I cam home to visit.  How would I make a living?  Have a family? I always suffered when I knew she was in pain.  I just couldn't hurt her that way.  

 

So I did what I was asked to do,  and I managed to come home.  And I resumed my life and I made a good living and I built my own family and now I'm retired, happy and content.  But I still wonder.  What does "honorable" really mean?

 

Today, as I see tens of thousands of our beautiful young people returning from two wars since 2001, many of them mangled but still alive, I feel a deep hurt.  I imagine another angry, black gash on the National Mall to recognize them.  But I am amazed at their spirit.  So many of them are getting on with their lives, as best they can, not letting their horrific war experiences hold them back.  I suspect that many of them may feel better about "their" wars than I do about "mine."  After all, we were attacked and we had to defend ourselves.  Isn't doing that an "honorable" act?  

 

In my rumination, I haven't found an answer.  I suppose I never will.  I get angry when I see some folks wave flags and put "support our troops" stickers on their cars, and criticize those who don't.  That's so easy.  It's harder to help military families stay off food stamps or hire a veteran or be willing to pay higher taxes so we can give veterans the right benefits.

 

It's Veterans' Day.  It started out as Armistice Day in 1918, celebrating The War To End All Wars.  We've had at least six wars since then.  So,  The War to End All Wars wasn't.  Is anybody surprised?  Do you suppose that, when we're finally out of Afghanistan in 2014, we won't be involve in some new war?  To me, that would be honorable. Let's hope.  It's the best we can do.