Happy Veteran's Day

Long ago and far away, when I was nineteen or twenty, I went to work at a certain post office. The year was 1978. There, I became close friends with a co-worker who was 26 and fresh out of the Marines, where he'd been in the Military Police. While his service was in the earlier 1970's, he was a bit late for Vietnam, and was assigned elsewhere overseas. He'd taken a serious bullet just a few days into his first real hitch, and received a *battlefield promotion* to sergeant for bringing down the perpetrator despite his own severe wounds, saving the lives of fellow Marines.

I was opposed to the Vietnam War, and remain opposed to that and certain other wars. While I'm not a pacifist in the manner of the Amish, I greatly dislike war. I hold the view that while war is sometimes a necessary evil, it's not necessary nearly as often as we make it. So we had some interesting discussions, my Marine friend and I.

I finally learned how to clearly understand and articulate much of what troubles me about war. I feel very strongly that everyone has a right to self-defense, for example, and wanted to resolve that inner conflict. I learned so very much by discussing these issues not with someone who agreed with me, but someone who was both quite intelligent and well-educated about the military and military history - and disagreed with me on many points about war. There's been no one else in my life who could have helped me understand all this nearly as well. Not even close.

In that time of terrible treatment of our own fighters by our own people, he was willing to talk about all this with someone who was against that war.

You, my readers, hold a wide variety of beliefs. That's precisely how I prefer it. If I only hang around with people who think or look or believe the same way I do, I learn nothing. I teach nothing. Worst of all, I am bored.

All my life, I've sat and talked with people from all walks of life, from all beliefs, and find my experience and understanding far richer as a result. Associating with someone doesn't mean I agree with everything they do or say. This seems obvious to me, but isn't always to others. One memorable and long-term discussion session, encompassing many weeks of sitting by a pool and talking for hours within our small circle of neighbors, included an avowed KKK member and his wife.

I absolutely disagree with everything the KKK holds dear. This doesn't mean I'll refuse to socialize with a KKK member on general principle: they too are entitled to their beliefs. Yet neither did I pretend I went along with their position. While refusing to argue, my occasional small comments, questions, and observations made my own position quite clear. To the credit of my cordial and sociable adversaries, that was tolerated, too.

My sister roundly excoriated me for passing up this excellent *opportunity* to show these people why they were so wrong - to convert them, in a sense. Otherwise, I should express my disapproval by refusing to talk with them any longer. I replied that I refuse to be bigoted against bigots, and feel they may well have interesting and intelligent points to make. Indeed, they taught me things I wanted to learn. And...I have reason to think I planted a few seeds that had them questioning some of their own beliefs. That can be far more effective than arguing.

Without that experience, I would never have heard the very interesting explanations of why they felt as they did. To my quiet - but great - satisfaction, I also heard how to them at least, the KKK had lost its power and its self-respect, even a portion of its validity. Its base no longer consisted of only the cream of the crop of any town; instead, many members were skinheads, considered very inferior beings by this KKK member. So much so that he'd actually let his membership lapse.

That was some fifteen years ago. To this day, I remain glad I took the approach I did: to listen to them despite my profound disagreement. Hearing from an ardent Klanner that the Klan had become, to him, something disorganized and disrespectable was a very great pleasure indeed.

Of course, we see on the internet that not everyone goes along with my approach. Some use their blogs, or their comments, as vehicles for ranting. Venting. Blowing off steam, as opposed to the dispassionate type of discussion that I feel is the best way to arrive at the truth. Surely there's a time and place for venting too. But a few of those folks become so aggrieved at the very concept of *tolerance* of different viewpoints that they sever internet relations with those who advocate it.

Perhaps some of those readers come here, and now, will cease to do so. If so? I am sorry to lose your readership. Your thoughts, opinions, comments are of value to me. Without them, my quest - that journey I'm on to understand life and truth - is made that little bit more difficult.

I've said this many times and I repeat it again: I belong to no group. I align myself with no political party or platform. My voter registration card shows no party, not even *Independent* - Independent is still a group. Instead it says NPA, for *No Party Affiliate.* Nobody - nobody - speaks for me except for myself.

To me, it's the only way to freely arrive at the truth. And the only way to live accordingly. Once one joins a group, sooner or later a time will come when either our own beliefs must be subjugated to differing beliefs of that group, or we are cast down or cast out. Our networks, ties, social relationships, the very pattern of our lives can be damaged or destroyed.

Yet to adhere to, even advocate, a position we disagree with is to live a lie. Living a lie will destroy us too, eating away from within like poison. Our trust in the righteousness of our group has been betrayed. I will not, ever, put myself in that position.

I don't view politics the way most everyone else does - my very starting point is different, and I hope you'll forgive me for not explaining it just yet - so I rarely discuss politics.

I'm not going to now, either.

Instead I return to my friend, the former Marine. I want to address a point I've heard on the net many times: that to say one is opposed to a particular war, but still appreciates and respects the armed forces involved in that war, is a lie.

Perhaps for some it is. For me, it is not.

It seems in modern times it's not soldiers, but politicians, who start wars. Our armed forces are under civilian control. If those politicians are mistaken in their instigation or prosecution of that war, how in the world could I blame the warriors fighting it? If I'm right and those politicians wrong, then our warriors have been wrongly put in harm's way by the very same politicians I disagree with. That's unjust indeed. Whether the warriors feel those politicians were right or wrong is not material here: what I am saying is that they are not responsible for starting the conflict.

I know myself - I understand what it is that I believe. I know I'm not misrepresenting my beliefs when I say I can separate those fighting for our country from those who set any particular fight in motion.

I appreciate what those in the armed services do for us. Generally speaking, they join up believing they're doing something right, something worthwhile. They put themselves in a level of danger that others will not accept. I know their motives for signing up are as varied as any set of people are. I don't care. Outside of criminal acts, I don't hold them accountable for following their superiors' orders. That's what they're supposed to do. That's their job.

When time passes and new armed conflicts arise, sometimes we forget those that fought in days gone by. I don't ever forget what my friend did. I've seen his scars and they are terrible. Huge chunks of flesh were gouged out of his thigh. It took months in the hospital to heal, and it was luck that kept him from amputation. When he was finally healed? He went back on duty.

The person who shot him had gone wild and crazy and was trying to kill as many people on base as he could. Terribly wounded and bleeding badly, my friend still had the presence of mind to sight upon, and accurately shoot, this person running amok before he got out of range and able to kill more innocent people. It was my friend's quick thinking and quick action - this by someone completely new to his job - that saved countless lives.

Now: That is a hero.

Every year, on November 11, I call my friend to say *Happy Veteran's Day.*

I can't quite remember when this tradition started. I may have missed a few years at the very beginning. I do know it's been going on for so long that I can't remember how many years it's been. Lots.

Sometimes he's out and I get his answering machine. That happened today. I was a bit disappointed, but I figured he was probably training or running. Here in his 50's he's taken up marathoning. His mission? To simultaneously improve his health, and raise money to cure blood cancers like leukemia. That's the kind of guy he is.

I'm so unaccustomed to talking on the phone any more, especially to friends instead of health care workers, I sort of forgot at the end just who I was leaving a message for. Like many of us, my friend and I now communicate almost entirely by web and email. My personal phone calls with a male are with Walter. We can use 6000 minutes a month and not even notice.

So at the very end of my Happy Veteran's Day message, I goofed - the same way I do sometimes with my nephew. I used a habitual term of endearment I usually reserve just for Walter, and said something to the effect of *Whatever you're off doing, baby, I hope you have a good day.*

Ooops.

And sitting here all by myself, with no one to see, still my face went beet red.

Did I explain earlier that deep down inside, I'm very shy?

I quick hung up the phone and giggled helplessly.

Well. All things considered, I guess he can probably handle it.