The very word veteran has come to mean experienced and deserving of respect when applied to any profession. The veteran actor, waiter, chef, seamstress are those to whom we turn, on whom we can depend, in whom we trust in any profession. That implied meaning of respect was earned for the approbation “veteran” by those for whom the term was coined more than five hundred years ago: soldiers.
I remain in awe of those who would choose to put themselves in harm’s way on my behalf. We are all leading the lives that we lead because there are those in our history – recent and distant – who are willing to die for the rest of us and what we all say we believe. The American Century, as this past one is called by us at least, is one in which we reluctantly stepped onto the world stage and took on the mantle of leadership held by other older countries for many centuries before.
We are a superpower today not because of the bombast of the loud mouths who run for office and make wars, but for the small, individual sacrifices of too many people to thank.
So today, on the day that the peace accords were signed in the “War to End all Wars,” we choose instead to celebrate not hollow victories or bloody battles but the people whose work every day makes everything else possible.
Today, I would also like to pay special tribute to those who choose to stand up for a country that did not stand up for them. I salute the black men who fought and died in a segregated army in World War II. I take my hat off the Japanese Americans who fought for this country while their families were in internment camps back home. I pay tribute to the brave women who fought for the right to fight for mine and today leave behind traditional “second class” roles for the honor of facing death to protect us all. And today I especially honor those men and women who must deny who they are and who they love to defend a country that asks them to lie as part of their duty.
Don’t ask Don’t Tell compromises the honor of all concerned by asking good men and women to lie to protect the feelings of bigots. What it does not do is prevent these honorable gay soldiers from stepping up to serve their country with bravery and distinction.
We are a country founded on high ideals. In many ways we aren’t there yet. But we get closer all the time. Sometimes it’s legislation that moves us along. Sometimes landmark court rulings bring us closer to liberty and justice for all. Sometimes we have had had to fight for those rights on real, not just ideological, battlefields. But sometimes it is the small personal acts of bravery like taking a seat at the front of the bus or serving in honor and in silence that advance the lives of us all.
It’s easier to see and reward acts of bravery and sacrifice on the battlefield and it’s worth doing. But that’s not what Veteran’s Day is about. Today is set aside to celebrate all those men and women willing to make the choice, despite the risk, despite the prejudice, despite the hardship to those they care about most, to advance the causes great and small that make us a better people.
In our quest to be the best that we seek to be, we would be hard pressed to find a better example than our veterans.
Thank you for your service, not just the ones we can see and hang a medal on, but for serving as models of our best selves and leading us toward those ideals that we say we hold to be self evident.
Eric Shaw Quinn 
Beautifully written, dear one. xo
eric… i concur with you on this. you have made lucid points here, as well as stating a tragically beautiful fact in your tribute when you say, “Today, I would also like to pay special tribute to those who choose to stand up for a country that did not stand up for them.” exactly —- though we, as a country, had the good fortune to capitalize on the destroyed manufacturing economies of europe during the last great war, in the process securing our prosperity for decades to come, those who would have us go back to that time with our social polices are dreamers who fail to wake up to the nightmare that many who gave the very most to insure all of our freedoms and prosperity are the very ones scorned, used, and discarded by our society of that era, and almost always the very last individuals to benefit from that great success.
and just as tragic for our democracy now, due to the ironic and unwise move on the part of liberal clergy, after the injustice of the vietnam war, in their decision to stop participating as chaplains in our military, we now have a military complex over run with fundimentalist christian jehadists who have had thirty something years to create an atmosphere of intolerance and fear, so extreme in fact, that those who defend us are now having to defend themselves in lawsuits against these people who are trying to brainwash our service men and women into right-wing facist thinking. and we all are dreaming if we think they are just going to go away. we all are now and have always been called to fight against these ideologies which expressed itself in in all its ugliness and destruction of the bush administration.
i was hoping we had learned our lesson from this massive “progressive” burial of heads in the sand with the policies of president bush, but i am afraid, for many, we have not learn that lesson, and will not, this side of the complete erosion our our freedoms or a holocaust on our own shores. i wish i could be more optimistic, and at times i still am, but it seems we demonstrate time and again we have dream amnesia, a fantasy realm where “God is in His heaven, and all is right with the world.” instead of this robert browning sentiment, i much perfer the worlds of benjamin franklin when he said, “God helps those who help themselves.” fundamentalist have learned this. when do we?
thank you, eric, for these informative and interesting articles. very important things that need to be said.
Amen. Beautifully written.
I typically can’t say the same for myself when discussing DADT- I tend to agree with Lady GaGa;
“If You Don’t Like It, GO HOME”.
When I was younger, I used to go with my mother to volunteer at army reserves. It used to be incomprehensible that so many people could give up so much with so little recognition. I think the phrase “army” has such a big meaning, I’m still trying to comprehend it. The first time I met someone I really respected was at one of these functions; she was black, she was a woman, I can’t remember if she was a general or what, but she was totally awesome. And a great speaker. I don’t know if I was seven or eight or what, but I was just speechless. She actually got down on one knee and shook my hand, and I just couldn’t say anything.
Hundreds of thousands of people doing this? By choice? I take my hat off.
Why I love to be alive, in this era, is, as Andy Beckett puts it: sometimes, once in a while, you get to see justice happen. And it’s so thrilling.
I agree. We are a fantastic country, and we’re getting so much closer to self-actualization every day. It’s a really cool thing. Sometimes I’m so psyched out, a friend of mine will go, “Are you trippin’?”. Actually, I’m not. It’s just really cool to be alive. So I thank the ones who gave everything. [Song association- ‘Soldier’s Poem’, by Muse; it’s a beautiful piece, and I definitely recommend it]
I do mean it when I say thank you so much for the post, Eric.