I have had an amazing opportunity, an opportunity to expand my mind by opening it up to new and different ideas, ideas that I may not have always agreed upon. Anyone who truly knows me knows that I am a little punk rocker, anti-establishment, and damn the man kind of girl at heart. When I was a senior in high school in Hawaii, I would in defiance refuse to stand to say the pledge or stand for the national anthem. I found the idea repulsive for a few different reasons. One, I did not believe in pledging my allegiance to an object. Two, I did not necessarily agree in the belief of the Christian God. And with that I did not believe in nationalism. I mean what was so great about our nation that made us deserve God’s love more than any other nation we were going to war against. I also did not believe in war nor any military branch for that matter, even though my Grandad was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force and flew airplanes in three wars. You could call my beliefs youthful naive ideals. Like many disenfranchised youth of today, I thought I knew everything. I thought the older generation must have it all wrong and here they were convincing our generation to go off and fight for them, to become brainwashed robots that did their every bidding.
Now I am older and wiser and while I do not say the pledge still, I will stand out of respect for the people who do say and believe in the pledge. I have my beliefs but I do not force them upon others by being disrespectful. I am well aware of the fact that many men and women in the military have given their life for my right to believe as I do. I have never taken that fact lightly. A young man asked me once why I was anti-military. I told him that I wasn’t against the men and women who joined, but against a system that would take an individual, break them down, use them, and then drop them with the snap of the finger because their bodies or minds were of longer a use to them. No, I am not against the military in general, but against the system that could treat another human so. When I lived in Hawaii, there were so many homeless veterans who fought in Vietnam. In fact, I knew two that weren’t homeless who would talk to me sometimes about the atrocities of war and one who was homeless. First, they were shunned by the people they thought they were protecting and then they were shunned by the very government that used them for their own agenda. That was and is still what I am against.
I met a very important person recently who opened my eyes and heart to something new and different. He is serving in a branch of the military now and we have had many lengthy discussions about several different things, but one thing we discussed was the government and the military. I asked him early on about who appointed him his rank and who he served. He very quickly replied that he served no one but the constitution and the people’s whose rights it was there to protect. We have had jokes and discussions about my liberalism and his conservatism and the beliefs of others likes us or not like us. We did so even though we were different and through doing so, we learned that we were more alike than we thought in belief and ideals. What many people don’t know is that many men and women go into the military because they want to help and provide service to the men and women of this country who cannot do it for themselves. I am a teacher, therefore, a public servant. I teach for this reason to, that I want to help and provide service to students of this country. I am writing a story and I let him read the prologue and first chapter and he asked me where my influence came from because he felt like I did a very good job in capturing certain sentiments found within the life after the military. I couldn’t answer at first and then I remembered my older generation friends, who I had forgotten over time and it saddened me that I had forgotten them and they were the ones that taught me about social injustice, in the way that we forget what it is that these men and women have sacrificed. Many have sacrificed their independence and their chance at a family and many have even lost their families due to being in the military.
That day we walked back into the brew pub and I saw an older man eating with his wife. He had on a hat indicating that he was a veteran of the air force who probably fought in Vietnam or at least the Korean War. I had this urge to go over and shake his hand and thank him and let him know we have not forgotten what it is he has sacrificed. I did not because being different and changing one’s views and maybe admitting you were a little bit wrong is scary. But being that my friend is a soldier, he did not hesitate and did what I couldn’t do. He was able to just simply say, thank you. Maybe sometimes that’s all we need to do is say, thank you for your service sometimes. We don’t have to agree with them, but maybe appreciate what they do a little more. While I was visiting with my friend, I always had this urge to want people to know that he was in the military and what he does, especially since he just got a promotion. I wasn’t trying to show him off. I was proud of him and proud of what he does and wanted other people to be proud of him and to thank him for his service and sacrifice too.
My friend and I met a very young idealistic naive disenfranchised young man. I can’t remember what he asked specifically, but it was to the point of how did we get along if we didn’t agree and fought all the time. We were both quick to respond that we have never fought about our ideals. We have had discussions where each of us openly listens and speak honestly. We even joke about our differences as well. Do we always agree? Of course not, but we are both open to learning something from someone else we may not have known before. We also trust each other enough to talk openly knowing that the other person is not going to judge, lash out, or take what each other has to say personally. We both realize that we are both on the same team, that team being humanity. Maybe we all need to be more open minded to this type of open discussion and realize that we are all on the same team and love more and hate less and accept more and shun less. It’s time we stand together and not apart even in our differences.
This blog entry is dedicated to the men and women who have died serving, are serving, or have ever served in the military. I would also like to personally thank my Grandad for his service to this country.