Veterans Day Thoughts

66H8A.

That was my identifier.

Sixty-six-hotel-eight-alpha.

Today is Veterans Day, so the topic has been on my mind a lot lately.

A lot of politicians try to paint it like none of us left-wingers have ever worn combat boots or that we never would... or that if we ever did they didn't fit quite right or something...

That just isn't true.

God knows I love my country.

I swore in at the Memphis MEPS twice. The first time I was seventeen and about to graduate from high school. At the time all I knew of the military was what I had seen on TV or in the movies. It seemed romantic in a way. Soldiers were strong and proud. Top Gun and An Officer and a Gentleman had recently peaked at the box office. It was 1989 and the world pretty much loved America, or so it seemed. My parents didn't have the money to send me to college. I had to do something. So, I joined the Navy.

The next thing I knew I was in boot camp in Orlando, FL meeting a lot of other girls from all over the country who were in the same situation. Nothing I had ever been through could have prepared me for the next several months of my life, but we were all in it together and the bonds were quick and deep. Most of us made it to graduation and out into the "fleet." I wouldn't take anything for having had the experience. It was an essential part of what makes me who I am today.

I was able to save enough money to go on to college after my discharge and I decided to become a nurse like my older sister. But I missed the camaraderie, the unity, the sense of family, purpose, and pride that I derived from the military. So, after a few years of working as a critical care nurse in the civilian world I decided to swear in again, this time as a reservist.

There was no Navy Reserve medical unit in Memphis with which to drill, so I joined the Army instead. (Of course it probably didn't hurt that I had a terrible crush on Colleen McMurphy in China Beach. I think Dana Delany did wonders for adding to the ranks of the Army Nurse Corps.)

It felt strange to go through the same building so many years later, get my physical, and raise my right hand again... and this time to be called "Ma'am." I never really got used to that part.

At any rate, my years of service are behind me as of last summer. I never set a boot into a combat zone, but I was in uniform for the first and second gulf wars. For not having participated in either, I am at once thankful and sad - if that makes any sense.

I guess what I am getting to is this: I do think our Commander in Chief is an idiot (I can say that now without fear or guilt) and I do think that the motivations behind the Iraq war are questionable at best, but I also know that neither of these issues effect the commitment that a soldier makes to his/her country or to his/her buddies in uniform. Whether my team meant my "shipmates" or my "battle buddies" I would do whatever it took to ensure their safety and success.

Unfortunately today's soldiers (and those from 1960 on, it seems) have not often had the luxury of a popular cause or even, at times, a clearly defined goal. I know that none of the guys or girls out there right now are thinking much about GW. They are thinking about their units and their families. They are thinking of getting through one more day. They want to survive. They want to do a good job. They want people to be proud of them. They want to come home. They want kids and grandkids and a white picket fence.

The time to pull out of Iraq would have been ideally before we ever stepped in. But we have stepped in and there is no erasing the impact. There is no going back to the way things were before. What's done is done. Now if we don't stay the course and ensure that some sort of stability is established then all will be lost and the future ramifications will be much more dire for us than, I fear, they already are.

This is going to be a very, very long process which will take place over the course of many decades. Actually, it already has. I don't think too many people are considering the history behind this situation.

As our country begins to feel the economic impact of the steady flow of our money overseas dissension grows. But war (or any real commitment to it) costs and, if we are going to see this through, we are going to have to make some sacrifices. This is something that people don't like to hear, especially if they were against the war from the beginning.

I know that I never wanted this and, if the polls are accurate, most of us didn't. Most of us don't now, for that matter. Yet we are at war. And we continue to want to function like a country which is not at war at all. It is as if we are all in denial.

I update my Ipod, collect my paycheck and bitch about the price of gas. I zone out when I hear CNN droning in the background giving me the latest updates on the day's body count in Baghdad.

But we are at war.

We are a country at war.

We may not have asked for it, but we got it.

Here we are. And we will feel the cause and effect play out whether we decide to think about it or not... whether we decide to believe it and act like it or not... whether we decide to do anything about it or not.

If I may be so bold as to make an appeal, I'd ask that today on this Veterans Day that we all take a moment (or more than a moment) to think about what it really means to us individually that our country (if you are an American) is at war.

Really think about it.

What does it mean to you?