Veteran’s Day Salute

Veterans day has come and gone.  I was at a meeting when someone asked that all the veterans stand and be acknowledged.  There is always someone who looks at me funny when I do this.  Yes, I am a veteran, too.

You cannot tell military veterans by looking at them, a point well made in this internet page.

A lot of them happen to be women.  Many people do not think very much about this.  I routinely ask women patients if they have served in the Armed Forces.  I mean, they may be able to get medications free or other benefits, so I always ask.

Often women laugh.

“We have equal rights in this nation,”  I tell them.  “We should feel, I think, an equal obligation to service.  At the very least, it is a vocational option for many, as once it was for me.”

My husband made a wonderful photo tribute for my beloved Aunt Sadie, and for me. We both served in the Army.  My aunt is a nurse and by now everyone should have figured out what I am.

I did not die or leave a limb behind.  Even peacetime Army means working in a hierarchy which can be quite uncomfortable for lots of folks for lots of reasons. Anyone who asks will learn that being in the Army and trying to maintain that weight (before I was as enlightened about weight as I am now) ran me down so much that I got ocular herpes, an infirmity usually reserved for cancer patients or others with seriously compromised immune systems. I went pretty much blind.  Of course, I left the military with this condition.  I had been a captain in the Army Medical Corps, doing general and other kinds of medicine as well as psychiatry.

Few people realize how much being the military compromises personal
civil rights — yes, even in these United States.  It is not easy in the best of times.  In the worst of times, “War is Hell,” as Harry Truman said — and that is a gross understatement.

I really like the “Thank a Veteran” movement.  Although I felt horrible on a recent airline flight where I actually had to wake a sleeping woman in uniform to get to the rest room. I did thank her for serving. She left her eight year old daughter with her mom to go to Afghanistan.  She would, with minimal stimulus, tell anyone who spoke with her about what life in the war theater was really like.  Believe me, news reporting is a pale reflection.

Thank a veteran.  Talk to a veteran.  I have always been in favor of talking to strangers. I remember when I first started college, at a certain distance from my beloved but over-protective mother of blessed memory, I would talk to pretty much anybody, and I learned a lot about life, the universe and everything.

Thank an active duty; thank a veteran.  Do not judge whether they are there only because of a lack of creative employment seeking or not.  Do not judge them on the actions of our leaders, whom they have pledged to obey before they knew what the action of our leaders would be.  They signed on the dotted line, and any few minutes or smile or chance to say “you’re welcome” is worth the minimal effort required.

11 November 1918 an armistice was signed at Compiegne to end the hostilities of the first World War, which was supposed to be the war to end all wars but quite obviously was not.

In the US, we think of the red poppies that grew “In Flanders Field” by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) of the Canadian Army.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Soldiers die, and anyone who puts on the uniform accepts that possibility — despite the energetic efforts in training to stop people from thinking of such things.

I actually visited the (unpretentious) railway carriage in Compiegne, France, where the armistice was signed. There, it is the “bleuet” — known as blue cornflower in America — rather than the poppy that is taken as a symbol.

Thank a service person or veteran. Do it now, even though the day has passed.  Do not wait for Veterans Day next year.