Dem
47
GOP
53
We have to have at least one item that's not a total downer today. So, here's R.L.D. in Sundance, WY that there's honor in the ranks, even when leadership is as shady as all get-out:
I've always been a bit ambivalent about my military service and status as a veteran. I served 7 years in the South Dakota Army National Guard back in the late 80s to early 90s. I had considered different options of service and decided on service in a reserve component because it allowed me to go to college right away. I did enlist for the educational benefits, but I also considered that being available to protect this country I love and the state I grew up in was a duty I could perform.
When I enlisted in 1986, the Cold War was showing no signs of thawing and everybody "knew" that if there was going to be another war, it would be nuclear. And if somehow it was a conventional war, they were going to need to re-institute the draft. My recruiter explained that people already in the Guard (and similarly the Army Reserve) would be called up based on the mission of their units and as whole units rather than the cattle call for cannon fodder that the draft would be. Seeing as how I lived in a town with at least three Minuteman missile silos within a ten mile radius (that I know of) that seemed like a good bet.
The other thing about service in the National Guard, specifically, is that as the organized state militia, there was an explicit civil disturbance mission, and regulations require Guardsmen and -women to get "riot control" training. My unit was (it's been decommissioned) based in Sturgis, SD. If you've not seen the Travel Channel in the past 20 years, you can be forgiven for not knowing this is the site of a huge motorcycle rally every August. My Guard service included the 50th Anniversary of the first Sturgis Rally and turnout was expected to be record breaking and feared to be violent. I remembered reading how bikers camping in the city park in the 70s got rowdy and pretty much shut down the adjacent highway. So not only did we get much more comprehensive crowd control training that year, but at the July drill, we were required to take our riot gear home with us so that it wouldn't be necessary to try to get to the armory in case we were called up. Fortunately for all concerned, we weren't.
When Desert Shield/Desert Storm came along, it changed everything. I heard from our counterparts from Sixth Army at an exercise after the end of hostilities that if Bush The Elder hadn't decided to stop where he did, all the units of our type in North and South Dakota would have been mobilized. Ultimately, I decided it was time for my service to come to an end (after extending my initial 6-year obligation one more year) and separated. I and the government paid off my student loans (which was less of a big deal back then than it is today), I got some free college credit (Basic Training counts as PE and ROTC classes have free tuition), the state of South Dakota had a program at the time for 50% off other tuition, and I benefited from the New GI Bill after completing advanced training. The enlistment bonus for signing up for a critical military specialty didn't hurt either. In general, reserve service without deployments earns fewer benefits, but I did qualify for a VA home loan (no down payment required) and was able to parlay that into my current home, which I own outright. Which is part of why I get so upset at my senator, Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) who flat out said she'd be happy to help homeless veterans if it didn't, you know, cost money. But I digress.
I benefited in less tangible ways as well. I learned that I could handle a LOT. There's an old story about a man who bit the head off a live frog every morning because that way he knew that nothing worse would happen to him for the rest of the day. Basic Training has a similar effect on your perspective. I get the in jokes. I don't need the acronyms and initialisms explained. I can (sort of) read a soldier's career from their dress uniform. Look, I consider myself an actor and a singer, with a degree in Spanish and History, which I turned into a career in IT. But I was also a soldier. To this day, decades later, I still feel siblinghood with all those who wore (and wear) the uniform and swore the oath. When those enlisted folks got into so much trouble for what happened at Abu Ghraib, I understood their obligations under the Law of War and why they needed to be held accountable. I also understand how much of a travesty it was that no one else in their chain of command was. And I know that swearing to defend the Constitution against all enemies is more than just a ceremony or a formality you go through to suckle at a government teat. It comes with obligations.
And I bristle at people who accuse me of "stolen valor" when the only things they know about me are that I swore an oath and disagree with them politically. Or that I wore a beret once (it was swag from "Weird Al" Yankovic's Mandatory Fun tour). It's especially jarring from people who most likely swore the same oath as government employees (which I have also done) and therefore know that the oath, by itself, doesn't come with any inherent valor. But I didn't go out of my way to get a free lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse on Veterans Day or avail myself of other such thank yous. The only active duty I ever served was active duty for training and I feel like others deserve recognition more than I do. If nothing else, there are nuances to my service that I just didn't want to have to explain if challenged. But my wife changed that. She is very proud of me for my service and has encouraged me to be more comfortable with that sentiment. I feel I have been pretty thoroughly thanked and repaid for my service, but now when people say "Thank you for your service" I just simply say, "You're welcome."
Thanks for being the palate-cleanser, R.L.D., after a bitter, bitter entree. (Z)