Happy Veterans Day! Today, we honor and thank all those who have served in uniform, representing about 6% of the US population. Our percentage amongst the US population is shrinking, but I suspect that will change in the coming years as more young adults attempt to enter the workforce unsuccessfully and get tired of working barista and front desk jobs with their bachelor's degrees.
Service in the US military remains one of the greatest social mobility strategies in the United States. Always has been. Always will be.
"I am not throwing away my shot!" Hamilton at the Buell Theater in Denver on November 8, 2024.
People give us veterans a lot on Veterans Day. It’s touching to receive texts and calls from friends and family, and the free meals are a nice gesture. Thank you! Sometimes we don’t show our appreciation very well. I remember being a young man and coveting that chip on my shoulder on Veterans Day, thinking, “Every day is Veterans Day for me!” While that is true, I no longer feel that chip on my shoulder. I just appreciate that my fellow countrymen appreciate our service (though I still time my entry into church until after they ask us to stand and be clapped at). Maybe there’s a little chip left…
I think about why we act that way, especially as my son interacts with the world as a service member. I see many common veteran behaviors in him after just a few years in the “family business.” We carry ourselves differently. We stand a little taller when the National Anthem is played, we scowl at those who won't remove their hats at a sporting event, we speak with a sense of authority and ownership, and we generally walk around like we own the place. It’s worth sharing why as a gift to the 94% of Americans who did not serve in a military uniform.
Veterans walk around like we own the place because we feel like we own the place!
To start with, we paid for our country with our very best. We volunteered to give the best of our youths and, in many cases, the prime years of our bodies for the hopes of our freedom and the freedom of those oppressed across the globe. This doesn’t make us better than you, we just recognize that we gave our best for you. We feel like we own the place because we live daily with echoes of the pain from countless moments of compounded hardship. If we’re a little gruff at times, I’m sorry. Truly. Please be patient with us. We may be quite physically uncomfortable at any given point in time.
Veterans feel like we own the place because we know something about America that others do not. We know we don’t have to agree on everything to protect one another from anything. When you live in a platoon of forty fellow Soldiers, you understand we don’t have to like each other to serve each other. Half the platoon won’t like each other. All the platoon will die for each other. We know what diversity and inclusion actually look like. We are thrust into a melting pot as teenagers, and regardless of where we’re from–what religion, creed, color, wealth, or education–we are the same. We learned this in our initial training, reduced to nothing on our own, and rebuilt into something together. None of us are any greater than the other.
We also know when we’re being hustled. After Drill Sergeant tricked us for the hundredth time, we learned to view all information with a degree of skepticism. We know to consider the source and the nature of the information before acting upon it. And we know that regardless of the pain that’s about to come our way, the only way through it is together. And on the topic of the impact of information, we also know that, for the most part, the media is full of shit. We have all experienced a moment overseas watching a news story unfold while shaking our heads in frustration. We’ve listened to the talking heads recount incidents–thousands of miles from them, yet only kilometers away from us–with scant accuracy and an abundance of certainty.
We also know what true danger and real fear are. When things feel scary and hopeless, when it feels like the world is crumbling around us, when someone aims to convince us that our very safety is at risk, we close our screens and remind ourselves that no one is shooting at us today. We have seen real danger. We have confronted the true enemies of our way of life, bent upon destroying everything we stand for, like freedom, democracy, pluralism, rule of law, opportunity, and justice. And we know that though we may hold disagreement, the enemy is not our fellow countrymen.
Veterans feel like we own the place because we know the face of the enemy, and it is not our neighbors' faces.
I wish we could give a little more of that to our fellow Americans today and every day thereafter. We could use some more good old-fashioned unity in America. We could do ourselves a great favor by remembering that we were never a perfect union, but a more perfect union worth fighting for. Worth dying for. And so are you, my fellow American, regardless of your worldview and whether or not it agrees with mine.
And that’s what you should know about veterans this Veterans Day. Though we may walk around like we own the place, I promise we would give everything we could to share it with you.
