Category: Veterans Issues

From 2014;

This year, like every year, I posted my portrait as a young platoon sergeant to my Facebook avatar, not as a way to attract the inevitable “thanks for your service” comments or even the flirts that I get (obviously from blind women). No, I posted it because I’m proud that I had an opportunity to serve my country. I never did anything heroic, nor do I claim that service in itself makes me a hero. But, those two decades of service has had a huge impact on my life and the lives of my family.

Another reason I do it is because my military antecedents of the Vietnam generation weren’t encouraged to discuss or advertise their service. When they came home from their war, they took off their uniforms and their service remained in the duffel bags in a dark corner of their basements. Even the soldiers who fought in wars before them didn’t respect their service. The Korean War veterans experienced the same treatment from the World War II generation when that war was fought to a draw.

Somehow, that black scar across the landscape on the National Mall etched with 58,000 names changed that. I won’t try to explain the phenomenon, I’ll just recognize that was the turning point for Americans’ appreciation for military service. Now, I can be publicly proud of my service because of the sacrifice that Vietnam veterans made, the sacrifice that came after they returned from war.

The pendulum has swung all the way back to the other extreme, now people who never served want to strap on a uniform and tell wild tales about wars in which they never really served. Our Stolen Valor page is chocked full of them. I guess we should feel better that everyone wants to be like us, but trust me, we don’t.

The appreciation that Americans have for their military has even prompted the people who haven’t served to denigrate our service in an attempt to elevate their own station in life by attempting to drag our reputations down to their level. They even make it attractive for veterans to come out this time of year and write articles about how they don’t think they should be thanked for their service. We have a word for that, now – it’s called being a Blue Falcon.

I’ll admit that I’m a little embarrassed every time someone thanks me for my service, because being in the military was the best times of my life, and I’m embarrassed that someone thinks that I need to be thanked for the privilege of getting paid for being the best asshole I could be.

But, I know the feeling that I got the first time I went to downtown DC on Veterans’ Day and, encountering a lone Vietnam veteran hanging out on the periphery of the activities, I reached out my hand and said “Welcome Home”, he shook my hand and then quickly brushed away a tear, embarrassed by his own emotional reaction to those two simple words.

Maybe that’s what we all want – instead of the thanks, the martial pageantry, the placards, the cheers – maybe we just want to feel welcomed back here in our home.

My special thanks to all of the Vietnam veterans who made sure that we didn’t have to wait two decades to feel welcomed.

I remember when Veterans’ Day was just another day off from work…well for everyone except veterans. My first Veterans’ Day after I left the military, in 1993, (I was actually on terminal leave at the time) was spent working as a security guard on a construction site…I was working full time while I attended college full time. I happened to pick up a newspaper on the way to work and it contained a column by the late Mike Royko on veterans and I always remembered his sage words.

Royko was a Chicago reporter and another famous Chicagoan, Matt Burden (Blackfive) remembers Royko’s column.

I just phoned six friends and asked them what they will be doing on Monday.

They all said the same thing: working.

Me, too.

There is something else we share. We are all military veterans.

And there is a third thing we have in common. We are not employees of the federal government, state government, county government, municipal government, the Postal Service, the courts, banks, or S & Ls, and we don’t teach school.

If we did, we would be among the many millions of people who will spend Monday goofing off.

Which is why it is about time Congress revised the ridiculous terms of Veterans Day as a national holiday.

The purpose of Veterans Day is to honor all veterans.

So how does this country honor them?

By letting the veterans, the majority of whom work in the private sector, spend the day at their jobs so they can pay taxes that permit millions of non-veterans to get paid for doing nothing.

As my friend Harry put it:

“First I went through basic training. Then infantry school. Then I got on a crowded, stinking troop ship that took 23 days to get from San Francisco to Japan. We went through a storm that had 90 percent of the guys on the ship throwing up for a week.

“Then I rode a beat-up transport plane from Japan to Korea, and it almost went down in the drink. I think the pilot was drunk.

“When I got to Korea, I was lucky. The war ended seven months after I got there, and I didn’t kill anybody and nobody killed me.

“But it was still a miserable experience. Then when my tour was over, I got on another troop ship and it took 21 stinking days to cross the Pacific.

“When I got home on leave, one of the older guys at the neighborhood bar — he was a World War II vet — told me I was a —-head because we didn’t win, we only got a tie.

“So now on Veterans Day I get up in the morning and go down to the office and work.

“You know what my nephew does? He sleeps in. That’s because he works for the state.

“And do you know what he did during the Vietnam War? He ducked the draft by getting a job teaching at an inner-city school.

“Now, is that a raw deal or what?”

Of course that’s a raw deal. So I propose that the members of Congress revise Veterans Day to provide the following:

– All veterans — and only veterans — should have the day off from work. It doesn’t matter if they were combat heroes or stateside clerk-typists.

Anybody who went through basic training and was awakened before dawn by a red-neck drill sergeant who bellowed: “Drop your whatsis and grab your socks and fall out on the road,” is entitled.

– Those veterans who wish to march in parades, make speeches or listen to speeches can do so. But for those who don’t, all local gambling laws should be suspended for the day to permit vets to gather in taverns, pull a couple of tables together and spend the day playing poker, blackjack, craps, drinking and telling lewd lies about lewd experiences with lewd women. All bar prices should be rolled back to enlisted men’s club prices, Officers can pay the going rate, the stiffs.

– All anti-smoking laws will be suspended for Veterans Day. The same hold for all misdemeanor laws pertaining to disorderly conduct, non-felonious brawling, leering, gawking and any other gross and disgusting public behavior that does not harm another individual.

– It will be a treasonable offense for any spouse or live-in girlfriend (or boyfriend, if it applies) to utter the dreaded words: “What time will you be home tonight?”

– Anyone caught posing as a veteran will be required to eat a triple portion of chipped beef on toast, with Spam on the side, and spend the day watching a chaplain present a color-slide presentation on the horrors of VD.

– Regardless of how high his office, no politician who had the opportunity to serve in the military, but didn’t, will be allowed to make a patriotic speech, appear on TV, or poke his nose out of his office for the entire day.

Any politician who defies this ban will be required to spend 12 hours wearing headphones and listening to tapes of President Clinton explaining his deferments.

Now, deal the cards and pass the tequila.

– Mike Royko

I’d add that no one should be able to say “Happy Veterans’ Day” like it’s Christmas or Easter. I hope you have a Thoughtful Veterans’ Day…and by the way, that free Grand Slam at Denny’s makes up for all of those C-Rat Spaghetti and Meatball breakfasts I choked down. I hope you go get yours…you deserve it.

Near Chicago, is an $11 million project ostensibly to house homeless veterans with a 35-unit single bedroom set of apartments, according to the Cook County Chronicle.

In June, Veterans Village celebrated its grand-opening celebration. The $11 million Melrose Veterans Project covers three city blocks in the 100 blocks of 13th, 14th and 15th avenues near Westlake Hospital, which donated the land.

A festive Flag Day party and open house was held, involving veterans, politicians and food. The Melrose Park Police Color Guard presented a flag ceremony, Mayor Ron Serpico cut a ribbon, the national anthem was sung and veterans from all wars were present.

“Our nation’s returning heroes deserve a place to come home to that meets their unique needs and that of their families,” said Neli Vazquez-Rowland, president of administering not-for-profit, A Safe Haven Foundation.

So, after the parades and speechifying, less than a third of the apartments in “Veterans’ Village” went to veterans – veterans that applied for the apartments, were left hanging waiting for word on their new homes.

Different layers of public funding come with strings attached. Two-thirds of the units in Veteran Village have already been promised to other categories of residents to comply with government set-asides.

“We have strict criteria we have to meet with different layers of funding,” said Vazquez-Rowland in an interview. “We do have a vet preference, but we don’t have a guarantee for veterans.”

So, why call it “Veterans’ Village”? Because it makes people feel better about themselves for supporting veterans without having to actually do anything for veterans.

CCHA Spokeswoman Monique Bond said Housing Choice tenants who’ve already moved in have veteran status.

“Three (possibly four now) veterans have been approved and we are seeking to approve five more,” Bond wrote in an email. “The remaining slots will be assigned to veterans once they meet the criteria.”

When the development is full, between 12 to 15 units — or 33-40 percent — of the Veterans Village will be rented by actual veterans, Vazquez-Rowland said.

Yippee!

According to Reuters, both houses of Congress have approved a bill that would allow more than thousand women pilots of the World War II era to be have their remains interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Senate passed the bill late on Tuesday and the House approved it on Wednesday, sending it to the White House for President Barack Obama to sign into law.

The women performed training and transport missions in the United States during the conflict so male pilots could be sent overseas.

Unlike male veterans, however, they could not be interred at Arlington, the best-known but very crowded U.S. military cemetery, because authorities have insisted their service was not the same as active duty.

From the Associated Press;

“It’s been just 19 weeks since the Army’s decision to kick out our pioneering female World War II pilots was brought to light, and we’ve been fighting ever since,” said Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., one of the bill’s sponsors and a retired Air Force fighter pilot.

The WASPs served in a unit called Women Airforce Service Pilots. They flew noncombat missions to free up male pilots for combat.

During the war, the women were considered civilians. But since 1977, federal law has granted them status as veterans. They had been eligible since 2002 to have their ashes placed at Arlington with military honors. In March 2015, then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh ruled that WASPs never should have been allowed in and revoked their eligibility.

I have to admit that I was ignorant on this subject until it became a political issue recently. I always thought that they were eligible. If Teddy Kennedy is eligible for a spot in Arlington, these women are certainly qualified. But, since it was McHugh who made them ineligible, the whole smacks of political theater – something that the president can point at as an accomplishment in a largely failed presidency.