Veterans Day Takes on a Whole New Meaning for Me

By: Steve Yuhas

There was a time in my life when Veterans Day meant little more than a day off of school, no mail and an inability to go to the bank.  When I was serving in our military it was also a day that I took for granted since we would almost always have a 96 hour liberty and not have to work until Tuesday (somehow I usually ended up on duty - I think people were mad that I got Christmas off).  Anyway, all of that began to change when people I knew began dying or were injured while defending freedom around the globe.

A short history of Veterans Day shows how our country evolved from two minutes taken out of a regular business day to the holiday that most people now celebrate.  On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of 1918 an armistice was declared during WWI, or the Great War, until a formal treaty could be completed (that was ultimately accomplished as the Treaty of Versailles).  At the hour of the armistice the fighting stopped and the world began to take stock of what happens when mortal men fight a modern war.

Millions were dead and millions of others injured.  Europe was in ruin, but the war was over and people around the world began to celebrate Armistice Day – first in the United States and then in the United Kingdom and France.  With many graves of the dead marked under a simple cross with the simple, but poignant inscription “HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY A COMRADE IN ARMS KNOWN BUT TO G-D” Congress authorized the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington in 1921 for a nation to remember her unknown dead.

The holiday began with two minutes of silence and matured into November 11th of every year being set aside as Veterans Day.  The last couple of years have been quite different than the days I looked forward to an extra day or two off.  These days I find myself in awe of the people I hung out with, the people I went to the chow hall with or the people I lived with doing things I never thought them capable of - becoming war heroes.

Many people I know, consider friends or served with fall into three categories.  The first are those that I served with who did their duty and are now civilians - I don't count those who left under other than honorable conditions or because they got the boot for doing something stupid.  Second are those who, like me, left because they were injured.  And the final among us are those who served, fought and died.  Like veterans before me I have people in all three camps now and I think I know what the old timers I used to watch on the History Channel feel when it comes time to remember our friends.

Many of the people that I know served in theaters of war such as Desert Storm, Somalia or the multitude of humanitarian conflicts that we were injected to during the 1990s - none of us could have been prepared to fight an enemy like terrorists who didn't wear uniforms and hid among civilians.  They don't teach being nice in boot camp and it is certainly not something we want to do when we know that if we don't kill them that they will have no problem killing us.  The expectation that our military make snap judgments and that being right or wrong is the difference between coming home a hero or spending life in the brig is not lost on those I communicate with.

There is no qustion that September 11th changed everything and most of us in uniform knew that it did the moment we saw the second plane hit the Trade Center.  Now many of the people I either served with or know fought in places like Fallujah and my proximity to Camp Pendleton, MCAS Miramar and all of our naval facilities bring home the reality of war.

Second is a group of people that I belong to as well.  For whatever ailment or injury caused our exile from the military we served honorably and went through the tedious process of being medically boarded from the military or were simply too injured to serve.  Our friendships didn’t change because we were injured, but being a disabled veteran certainly puts things into perspective.  One minute you’re on the road to a 20-year-career in the military and the next you’re getting orders from a medical board that you are unfit for duty and you have to go. 

Fighting the medical board is futile and when you leave you leave behind men and women that will be friends for life.  You shared something with these people and sharing something as simple as the chow hall or as devastating as putting a bandage on a guy and telling him that he will be okay is something you never forget.

The most honorable among us are those who never came home.  This war is not like wars where crosses and markers of those known but to G-d are planted wherever room is required after a battle, but the scars of knowing that a friend that you went to boot camp with or were stationed with in Germany, California, Texas or in the Pacific is dead is a hurt like no other.  I used to watch documentaries and listen to those who came before me talk about losing their friend on a battlefield.  The hurt they felt was palpable through the screen and now many in my generation will be telling our stories decades from now.

Whether it is simple nostalgia for the time I spent on active duty or just knowing full well that the war against radical Islam will be long and more of the people I served with will die before it is over – Veterans Day is not just a day off anymore.

When I think back at the people I served with in many places around the world I do so knowing that some of those I served with are dead.  They died far too early in life and in the short moments in time that we were able to know each other we laughed and lived life the best way we could.  We had fun, we worked hard and we played hard and for them life is done.  They lived the way they died and they died doing that which they enjoyed the most – fighting for our country. 

The battles to come against Islamo-fascists will be fought all around the world and there is no doubt in my mind that I will lose more friends and people that I know in this war.  The difference between people opposed to the war who protest out of hate for a President and those who support the war because we valued our friends is like night and day.  For those who died it was worth the fight – we were and are all volunteers – and on this Veterans Day I know that they sacrificed for all of us and that sacrifice has become a part of me.

The Greatest Generation taught us in their service during both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and all of the missions that we fought and won that war is hell and they are right.  It is not without a heavy heart that I say that one thing you can never be prepared to face is the news that someone you rode the train to Frankfurt with or went to a club with in San Diego died while fighting against people who want to kill us and change how we live life.  Boot camp certainly doesn’t prepare you for how to react to the knowledge that a friend is dead or wounded, but we can learn from those who came before us. 

The only thing we can do is do what the Greatest Generation did: Remember the sacrifice of those who died or were wounded by winning the war and doing one thing that almost nobody would object to who ever wore the uniform.

A TOAST!

On this Veterans Day I remember all of those I served with and I know that looking down on us from wherever they are there are soldiers and Marines smiling as we celebrate their lives and their sacrifice.  No matter how far we’ve come the taste of cheap liquor comes to mind for the most appropriate toast to those we lived with, worked with and for some of us died with.  Two things never change: war brings with it the good and the bad and lowly corporals could only afford cheap booze, but sometimes it was who you were with not how good the toasting beverage of choice.

Steve Yuhas is a radio talk show host on AM 600 KOGO in southern California and may be reached at steve@steveyuhas.com or www.steveyuhas.com