When I was a kid, I watched Yankee Doodle Dandy and Sargeant York. I felt pride and a tingle from my head to toe as I went to parades and saw Old Glory. I was close to my maternal grandparents. My grandfather was a republican. He was an older type republican and nothing like what we have today. My grandmother was a democrat. They were married 57 years.
I was used to politics and the fierce debates around a big dining room table at Family gatherings. They were debates and not arguments over policy not arguments over nonsense and people talked issues. I had uncles who served in WWII and one was shot down over Germany fighting Nazis. He was a paratrooper. I had another Uncle in the Navy during Korea. My Daddy was a WWII veteran. I saw pride in service and respect for most everyone no matter the label. There was a difference though, neither grandparent would have voted Donald Trump no matter what he claimed his party was.
I was from Georgia. I know the above sounds so incredibly naive but love and respect for country was embedded in our very souls and hearts. Things all changed after John F. Kennedy was shot. Things started to change. I was getting older and more observant at my surroundings. Vietnam had kicked in and I was for every soldier that answered the call to duty. I was unsure why we were in that little unknown country. I did not see the news displaying what was later a known fact. We had no business being there. There was so much propaganda regarding that country in S.E. Asia as I watched more and more of my close friends and family march off to a war and they were so young.
I had started following the Civil rights movement because I knew how it felt to have a little friend of color and have to hide and play because black and white were not supposed to hang out with each other. We still had Colored and White only signs. Seems this Red, White and Blue only worked for the White and ugly for POC.
Veterans were special. They put themselves in harms way because their country called upon them. Young people also joined the military for many reasons. They lacked educational opportunity in civilian life or had poor homelives. Many were visited by recruiters and talked into joining by the buddy system or just flat out lied to. I wrote letters to my friends overseas and tried to keep up with my other friends either heading to Canada, San Francisco or a Washington March.
So much was happening and Veterans were coming home suicidal and different. I watched many die and want to die. I saw people it seemed, marching everywhere.
There was the Anti-Vietnam movement, the civil rights movement and the womens liberation movement. These movements also included or even leading with veterans who wanted America out of the war and equal rights. It was a time of confusion and a country divided. Well, the country seemed to go downhill with a few brief years of pride after Nixon. We had Jimmy Carter for one term and people were already drawing lines in the sand. We managed to keep the House and Senate but things had changed. Reagan came along and we had all kinds of corruption, yet again. I had stopped attending parades. I did not feel any tingle anymore. I was beginning to get angrier and angrier as I saw this country turn it’s back on people dying from Aids under Reagan. We had the Iran-Contras and people either loved Reagan or despised him. I fell in the latter line of thinking. I thought he was a phony actor who should have continued to play his silly roles with Bedtime with Bozo. He was hurting unions and help bring in the zealous evangelicals.
The hate was strong by the time Bill Clinton arrived in DC but he brought great economic times but again there was hate between republicans and democrats. I had hope when President Obama entered the scene to hopefully rid us of GW Bush. Hope had all but disappeared with the purple bandaids, the Iraq war, the swiftboating of John Kerry who WAS a true veteran and statesman. Hate was running rampid and climate change was for real with Katrina, wildfires, and of course the open disenfranchisment of voters and yet President Obama even made me believe that racism might be on the decline. It seemed no matter what he did for Veterans, it was never enough for many who were still angry. Veterans were angry from the Vietnam war and most were sick. They were physically and mentally sick. The Veteran Community had split into a partisan bunch. Some held on to resentments of going to war, some had wanted to join Operation Desert Storm under Bush I and I think that came from, “ I still can” who were getting older. There were the Pro Gun totin vets who wanted to still fight and Bush lovers and there were the peaceful veterans who wanted peace and thus became enganged in Veterans for Peace. They were tired of meaningless wars and were engaged in peaceful movements or just became withdrawn and wanted the pain to end. These were the veterans who did not vote or voted democrat.
The NRA had taken hold of the electorate and so had Right Wing radio along with Fox news. The boil was festering. There was much division among people during the Bush years. There was more division among veterans and their families. I know because I as a veterans advocate and we were non partisan as a group but it was difficult to deal with the hate, even then. Bush had cut programs, ignored many issues, and it was next to impossible to get a claim through. I never understood why a veteran would vote republican.
Now...Now...we come to the Trump debacle and even through the horror of the 60’s, I have never, ever seen a country with more hate, more division and misguided people, including veterans who can vote for a man who took 5 deferrments, conned a vet out of a purple heart and has used them to the max. He has used partisan divide to wedge them further apart and that includes our active military, which is very dangerous. We never had to worry about a brotherhood with the veteran community UNTIL NOW. I suspect the division is so broad that before anyone one helps another out of a fox hole, they might just ask if they were pro or anti Trump. This might be hyperbole but I have my suspicions of loyalty to Trump being stronger than loyalty to a fellow soldier. Active Duty take an oath to the Constitution, not to any one man of any one party.
This Veterans Day, I feel shame ...no tingle. I feel heartbroken that a country as great as I thought America was is in turmoil and chaos. I still thank our veterans and want to help them get their deserving benefits but my passion has dwindled with all of the people who have Rah Rah’d Donald J. Trump. I walk into a VA and see that mug on the wall and want to hit something. I hear talk I don’t want to hear. I hear division all around. My plans are to disassemble my veterans organization by 2020. I don’t see an America anymore. I see something we are going to have to take back. We made a big start November 6th but it is going to have to take more. It will take decades. I feel like we are in a war zone right here in America. The best thing for America is to quit making veterans.
To all of those who have stood on foreign shores, I thank you for your service BUT do not seek help from a man who has shamed this country and YOUR service. I suggest all veterans look for that beacon on the hill. I suggest you lay your anger aside and seek out the organizations like Veterans for Peace and Vote Vets, who truly have your best interest at heart. May you all heal and make peace with yourselves and your fellow vets because we are in a time people have never seen before since the Civil War. This is 2018, not 1818. It is time to recognize we need both parties to work for the good of a nation and not just Trump loyalists. Out of all of the voting blocs, I feel the sorriest for the veteran.
Too many have placed their anger on the wrong side of history and cannot get the help they need from a man who is indeed a coward. God Bless America, because we are not the America I knew or thought it was. Do I hate America? No. I loved America. I just don’t recognize it anymore. This Veterans Day seems so sad. There is some hope with the new congress but it also feels like all the institutions veterans fought to defend from the press to freedom of assembly has been thrown aside and it feels like some orange alien and the cowardly Republican leads are holding a match to the Constitution. A constitution that millions have bled, died and sacrified for. I thank you for doing your duty when called upon and I feel so bad for all of you that have chosen to stand on the right side of history of right and wrong. I feel bad for those who have taken the wrong side of history and are following a deceitful liar who never served or only wants to pick fights. Isn’t it amazing? Old men start wars and young men fight them. I hope and pray that the draft is not initiated again because we will just have more blood for money and at the expense of young men and women everywhere that will be forgotten once the uniform is shed. They will continue to be props for evil.
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