11/11
Today is Veterans Day here in the United States. In other parts of the world it's known as Remembrance Day, originally Armistice Day. It marks the end of The Great War (World War I), and on a broader level it's meant to mark the efforts and sacrifices of those who have gone to war for their countries.
Veterans Day has never been much of an observance for my generation and those younger. We hadn't had a major war within our active memory to drive home to us the impact of war and what being a "veteran" really means. It was just a government holiday wedged awkwardly into the week, one that closed schools when we were kids and inconveniently closed banks and the post office when we were older. There wasn't anything we'd really experienced to show us what the holiday was meant to be about.
But now...now we have two wars that there are, and will be, veterans of, hundreds of thousands of veterans when it's all done with (and who knows how long that will be). Thousands of veterans will forever bear the physical scars of those wars, and thousands more will carry psychological scars. And 1200-some families, so far, don't get the luxury of having veterans--their soldiers are gone, killed in the streets and deserts of Iraq, the mountains and minefields of Afghanistan. I can't even give any numbers from other countries who have losses from these wars, but there are veterans for them as well.
This is not a political post. It is not about the wars. It is about recognition of what these men and women have done, have sacrificed, have taken on, and will continue to do and sacrifice and take on. Yes, for many of them (including the man I am marrying), it is their job. But it's a job that for the last 30 years most of us had the luxury of not thinking much about.
Today is the day we have designated for thinking about that. Today, even if you don't ever think about it at other times, please take a moment to think about it. The traditional time to do so is at 11 a.m. (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month). But any time during the day will do. Just a moment. Just a remembrance, an acknowledgment of our veterans. They've earned that much.
Veterans Day has never been much of an observance for my generation and those younger. We hadn't had a major war within our active memory to drive home to us the impact of war and what being a "veteran" really means. It was just a government holiday wedged awkwardly into the week, one that closed schools when we were kids and inconveniently closed banks and the post office when we were older. There wasn't anything we'd really experienced to show us what the holiday was meant to be about.
But now...now we have two wars that there are, and will be, veterans of, hundreds of thousands of veterans when it's all done with (and who knows how long that will be). Thousands of veterans will forever bear the physical scars of those wars, and thousands more will carry psychological scars. And 1200-some families, so far, don't get the luxury of having veterans--their soldiers are gone, killed in the streets and deserts of Iraq, the mountains and minefields of Afghanistan. I can't even give any numbers from other countries who have losses from these wars, but there are veterans for them as well.
This is not a political post. It is not about the wars. It is about recognition of what these men and women have done, have sacrificed, have taken on, and will continue to do and sacrifice and take on. Yes, for many of them (including the man I am marrying), it is their job. But it's a job that for the last 30 years most of us had the luxury of not thinking much about.
Today is the day we have designated for thinking about that. Today, even if you don't ever think about it at other times, please take a moment to think about it. The traditional time to do so is at 11 a.m. (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month). But any time during the day will do. Just a moment. Just a remembrance, an acknowledgment of our veterans. They've earned that much.