A Veterans Day Parade

Coming from the opinion of an Iraq war veteran, I can testify that Veterans Day--a day of remembrance for all the veterans who sacrificed their lives, limbs, and sanity for the decency of American society--strikes me as a shallow, contemplated lie, and really does not mean a damn thing to me.

And why should it? To some, this callous attitude towards a national holiday may appear unjustified, or that as a veteran, I may sound ungrateful for it. But to frame this holiday into a rational context, I have to ask: When the negligence and indifference towards the humanity and respect of a group of people can be so easily redressed once a year on a federally mandated holiday, why should we place any amount of importance on this faux holiday of remembrance, and especially when it insults our intelligence?

In short, veterans, and the day to honor them, hold about as much importance to most Americans as Kwanza does to the Young Republicans of Texas.

For some of my closest friends and me, Veterans Day is every day, and it is a Fact that cannot be so easily praised and cheered with the enthusiastic waving of an American flag.

Many of us live through life in the solitary confines of our experiences, walking amongst the living while holding hands with the dead.

Some veterans, homeless, jobless and hungry, live day to day begging for scraps on the streets, all the while running from the demons that follow them from the war.

Other vets try desperately to placate their own personal hells, to mask their horrible disfigurement and pain by medicating through substance abuse and violence. Having been turned away from the very hospitals that bear their name, they sit in wheelchairs, with missing limbs, with jaded eyes, inebriated in front of TVs, just to forget, just to make it through the day.

Some veterans will not even be alive to see the big Veterans Day parade, because for some toiled and tired vets, suicide will be the only solution to the all-consuming problem that is their life.

For some of us, Veterans Day is much more than a day off from work, or an all-day shopping spree, or a good excuse to fire up the barbeque grill. It is an unpleasant fact. It is hiding from the ghosts of our pasts. It is living every day with an unbearable guilt. It is trying to live and maintain in a society that you feel deep in your gut is inherently sick and deranged.

It is living without hope.

As Americans, we only pretend to celebrate the honor of veterans on Veterans Day. Maybe because deep down in our national psyche, we all know that the crimes our politicians commit against helpless people in foreign countries--enforced through the strength of our troops--is ultimately dishonorable, immoral, disgusting, and wrong.

But if we truly believed in recognizing the services of our veterans, we as a people would honor our vets by removing them from the immorality of a criminal war and demand an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

If we honestly revered the sacrifices of our soldiers returning home, we as a people would hold our government responsible for guaranteeing that every veteran in this country is afforded with free health and education services to ensure each vet has a fair opportunity to start her/his new civilian life.

In a perfect world, this is how we would honor our veterans in America. Furthermore, it would not be solely an annual event. The duty of a compassionate citizenry forcing governments to take care of its veterans would be a daily function in our lives…in a perfect world.

The reality is that America has a long history of sending young adults to the collective suicide of war, only to neglect and sweep under the rug those veterans who return home. From the stolen pensions of veterans in the Revolutionary War, to President Hoover’s military assault on the “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans in 1932, to soldiers’ Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam to Depleted Uranium exposure to Gulf War and Iraq War vets, each generation has its ugly war story to tell.

When one considers this history of negligence and insensitivity, it’s no wonder that most veterans do not think highly of Veterans Day. Much like Black History Month is to the Civil Rights struggle, or that Columbus Day is to the Native Americans, Veterans Day is the ultimate irony for the war veteran: a government-sanctioned holiday for the purposes of whitewashing the patterns of social inequality throughout the years of America’s history.

But perhaps I shouldn’t be so pessimistic about yet another great American spectacle. People are always telling me I have the stereotypical “Angry War Vet” complex brought home from Iraq. Maybe it is time I take my doctor’s advice, pop a Government-Issued Paxil, and “loosen up” a little bit. After all, Veterans Day does serve a higher, nobler purpose. Not only does it encourage blind jingoism and unquestioned obedience to the established order set forth by our ruling elite’s greed-driven capitalist regime, it also gives millions of Americans a nice and cozy “Patriotic” reason to go shopping this weekend.

Indeed, reverence through consumption, our good ol’ American pastime. And on this fine “Veterans Day-Weekend-Blow-Out-Sale-Extravaganza”, as long as the American consumer is getting a whopping 15% off on all furniture purchases at IKEA or 0% APR financing for 6 months on their brand new Ford monster truck, at least I know I did my part in fighting for the American Cause. For God, Country, and the Almighty Dollar.

posted by Jeff Englehart
aka: heckle
Iraq Veterans Against the War
www.ivaw.org