I am an American military service veteran. I have paid a price and earned the right to have my voice heard on this holiday. What right do those who have offered nothing, now have to offer opinion? I know much of this to be common opinion among general service men because I have heard it voiced from many others as well.
God bless America. That is what I hear all day long. Then I hear, “Thanks to all our servicemen, past, and present, for willingly risking and some giving their lives to insure our freedom”. People have no idea the sacrifice we give in the military service of our country, and for slave wages, less than minimum wage in the civilian work . So here is but one story from one of us.
I joined the US Navy in the fall of 1974, and my time ended at the end of 1979. I graduated High School in 1973, and went to ITT Tech to get a technical degree. I was able to work at a part time job, and together with my mother’s part time job, it was working.
But just as I got started, the bottom dropped out. In the winter of 1973, the wealthy owners of the oil companies devised a way to gain even more profits. They instigated the OPEC Nations to come together and limit oil production, and then claimed a fake oil shortage. This had a detrimental effect on the average citizen, more than doubling gasoline prices immediately. But the bigger problem resulted in the US auto manufacturing industry.
I lost my job working for an Oldsmobile dealership. Unable to find another job, I had to quit school, and go back home to my parent’s house. After a few months of no job availability, my only recourse was to join the US armed forces. I was one of the lucky ones and scored in the upper percentile of applicants on the aptitude test, so I had my pick of jobs, and training. I joined the Navy, and was stationed at one of the best ports, from a shore leave perspective, Mayport Florida, stationed aboard an aircraft carrier.
But this was anything but a party, as the good times were few and far between for a young single man. We spent about two thirds of our time out at sea, and even more time oversees, with the every other night and Cinderella liberty, which means in at midnight, the few times we did pull into a foreign port. When we were at the place we considered the most pleasurable, our home port, we received anything but admiration or respect from the locals. It was “lock up your daughters” time. Good girls, who listened to their parents, would have nothing to do with us. Pretty much, the only thing to do was to go to the bars, play pool, and drink. This is the reason sailors had such a bad reputation. And during the decade I was in, we were easily spotted with our military haircuts, and avoided.
Being out at sea for days and weeks on end is more boring than can be imagined for a young man. The days seemed to take years. When you are nineteen years old, five more years of this seems like an eternity. It is akin to being in prison. I cannot explain the eagerness to gain freedom. You are so jealous of those not in the service. I’d rather have been a bum on the street, with my freedom, rather than to face reporting for duty the next, and every morning. And when we did get that once a year leave time, the elation was unbelievable. This is why sailors get so wild; we were out of our mind, with a lot of catching up to do. Fathers really did need to lock up their sons and daughters with us in the neighborhood.
While I was at sea there were a lot of idle hours after our daily work schedule. We played games; chess, cards, etc. We had TV’s with on-board cable and re-run movies at night. We had letters to write, and books to read, or music to listen to. I spent hour after hour also just starring off the side of the ship watching the waves, or watching the warplanes take off, and land on the flight deck, from a vantage point on the ship’s super-structure. I had access to these places because of my job as a radio technician. I got really good at some card games, and chess, from our many hours of practice. Sometimes we would sit around and reminisce about what we did in our high school days, or what we were going to do when we got out.
I took every opportunity to ask my fellow comrades why they joined, and was especially curious why those that re-enlisted would do so. Everyone I met hated being in the Navy, and couldn’t wait to get out to freedom. They all said, as I, they needed a job, or joined for the technical training. No one said they joined to protect their country from its enemies, or to help secure freedoms for all Americans. All of the ones that re-enlisted that I asked, said it was because their wife was pregnant, and they worried about not being able to get pre-existing medical insurance for the delivering of the baby.So it was a matter of money that makes our young men join the service, and it is a matter of money that makes some of them re-enlist. But we did know what we signed up for, we all knew we had a job to do, and we weren’t about to run from the face of danger.
Remember, I had one of the better jobs in the military. I slept in a real bed, small and hard as it was. I wasn’t directly shot at in a jungle, or desert situation. I didn’t have to look anyone in the eye and kill them. I had no immediate sense of fear, even though we were many times in the battle zone, and our planes were shooting down enemy planes. Our aircraft carrier was well protected by the other ships in the fleet, even though the aircraft carrier would be the desired target of the enemy. These occasional skirmishes were undeclared and didn’t make the news media, as they were. The media reported us "standing by" for a situation, when we were actually in a battle situation. And the Vietman war lasted years longer than reported.
So basically, here is the way it stands: our countries young men born of the less affluent levels of society are the ones forced into putting their lives in jeopardy, for the protection of the more rich elite. This is akin to the slavery of the poor.
I got out with my military training and experience and it did give me a leg up against other job applicants. But these job applicants in my league were fresh out of college, and younger than I. I went to work as a computer technician and used my benefits to attend college. But there were guys in my workgroup with seniority on me, by virtue of having worked for this particular company longer than I, that were younger than I and had less total years of job experience. The thought is disconcerting to know that because this child’s parents had enough money to put him through college while I was out in the line of fire, and after doing my time, came back to my country that I risked my life for, just to play second fiddle to these fortunate spoiled and younger children.
What every young man wants is to find a place in the world he can call his own. His hormones are at their height and he wants his own girl, and we don’t want to have to have to find a different one every week. We want the security of not having to worry about that, so we can get on with our lives. I knew a few guys that were in with me that were married while in the military, and most of the marriages ended in divorce because of the wife’s loneliness. I resigned to not get married until after I was out. When took my once a year month leave, it took most of the month to go through a few girls and find one I liked, then it was time to go. I held none of them to a promise, and I did not utter a word of promise. So the next year when I returned that girl was taken, and the process started again. In a sailor town, sailors outnumber the local available girls many times over. Very few sailors get a date in a sailor town. And the local guys have the advantage of access, as we are not in town much, plus the fact that they know their fellow citizens having been there all their life. So I waited until after I received my discharge from the service and found a girl just out of high school, married her, and started my life at age 25, with a new bride 18 years of age. I lost seven years of the best part of my life, before I got a good start, for the protection of my country. I floundered with no real job for the first year, and six more years mostly floating at sea.
People are saying we can never repay our soldiers the debt we owe them for the sacrifice they made for our freedom. I really don’t see anyone trying to. To give us a holiday once a year and wave flags is meaningless to us when we are ignored and trodden on for the rest of the year. I am not asking for pity. I am happy and doing fine, and I count any past hardship in my life a blessing. Like I said, I was one of those that had it easy, so I am not speaking for myself as much as for the others. I am just saying this to show all you flag wavers just how silly you look to someone like me. You wave a flag in patriotism, but did not make the slightest effort to earn it, nor are you and America repaying our soldiers in proportion to the sacrifice given. Lip service is cheap replacement for actual repayment. As an American veteran, I do not feel honored in the least at all this activity of the celebration of Memorial Day.
The only result I see in all this patriotism is to elevate the sense of self-pride of country. You are doing nothing more than bringing glory to evil war, death and killing. The rich want to get richer, so they send the poor to war to gain more power for themselves in the world, and this activity that has killed thousands, and thousands, and injured far more, both physically, and mentally, is glorified with a holiday once a year, in the effort to gloss over all the wrong going on that we do not see.