My insurance company informed me there will be a National Military Monument in Washington, D.C. They wanted my permission to put my name on it. I did not respond.
On Veterans Day 2015, I wrote,
I don’t understand veterans recognition in the 21st Century. Everyone thanks veterans for their service if they know he or she served. At the grocery store there was a sign in the window advertising a free breakfast for veterans on Nov. 11. Do they think we can’t afford to make our own?
I’m sure they mean well, but to me, it is one more thing on a list of grievances with the rampant militarism and imperialism that characterizes the United States today. I didn’t defend my country for a free meal on Veterans Day.
Nothing has changed since I wrote that. I am sure my insurance company means well. We are a member-based organization founded to serve members of the military and veterans by providing auto insurance. I have been with them for 50 years. I found something unseemly in them leveraging our member database to support this memorial.
I enlisted for two reasons. There were few opportunities in my hometown that paid a living wage. The other is that Father enlisted with his brother while my grandfather was imprisoned for draft-dodging during World War II. It was a matter of family honor that seven years after Father died in an industrial accident, I enlisted.
So yeah. A national military monument means nothing to me. The list of names can never be complete. They should scrap the project, since many of the names of military personnel since the American Revolution are lost to history.
Please. You be you, and let me be. For Pete’s sake! Just put up an obelisk!
2 responses to “National Military Monument”
My two years in Vietnam appears to be meaningless to the military since they can’t even distingush between those in the war zone and those who never left the states! This business of “era” veterans and hanging “Vietnam” on their tombstones discounts those who had boots on the ground in that war. Leaving us simply to wait while many of us died from effects of the war like Agent Orange, until the public finally figured out we deserved better and started “Thnking us for our service” was far to late for anyone to really appreciate that milk toast and guilt ridden “Thank You”. I will say my attitude about this was much improved when I went to Chicago for the Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home Parade. Most people that I interact with have no idea it even happened!
Good point; the list could never be complete.