Memorial Day 2013

Like many of you, at least part of this weekend was devoted to the scorching of foodstuffs on an outdoor grill, as is our national custom.

Flags were put out in daylight and taken in, as is also the custom, before evening darkness fell.

CAA did not, this year, participate in any public displays (beside the flags) or observances marking the occasion of Memorial Day.  CAA's observances of Memorial Day were mostly private.  A few words on the subject were exchanged between CAA and Madam-at-Arms, who teases me on my pedantic insistence about what Memorial Day signifies.

(I know some of my Foreign Service colleagues abroad were representing our country in public observances of Memorial Day at some surprisingly far-flung locales.)

Memorial Day has an interesting and distinguished history.  It honors not (at least not any more) the veterans of a particular conflict.  In fact, it is intended not to honor veterans at all, but to allow civilians (and surviving veterans) to honor those who died in our country's wars.

Living veterans have our own day, in November, which is well and just in its way.

So today, privately, I took some time to remember the fallen, those I knew personally and those whom I never had the chance to meet.  I also reflected upon those veterans who survived their wars, returning home, but who have since gone to their final, well-deserved, rest.

Most of the veterans in my generation ("Generation X" as many call it) are still in the prime of their lives, many still serving in uniform.  We served, side-by-side (actually, most of the time we were their leaders, supervisors, or commanders), with the "Millenials" or "Generation Y."

So unlike The Greatest Generation which won World War II, those of us who served in Iraq and Afghanistan will be around for many decades to come, most of us, although eventually we too will no longer be around to celebrate Veterans Day but will, hopefully, still be remembered and honored on Memorial Day.

I hope all (both?) of my readers had good weather over the long weekend, enjoyed a good old-fashioned cookout or two, and in the course of the day itself, spared a thought or prayer for our nation's fallen service members.

re: "A Day That Shall Live in Infamy"

Emperor Misha at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") shares some trans-generational words of encouragement.*

Money quote(s):

"(A)s I grew up it wasn’t some point in ancient history, which is how our children will see it. To put it into perspective, think back on who you were in 1984. Then think about how you thought about the outbreak of World War I. That, back then, was 70 years ago as well. I can’t recall being taught much about the lessons of the Guns of August back when I was a strapping teen, and I don’t imagine that our kids will be taught much about December 7, 1941 today."

Growing up, CAA still had family members who not only served in the Second World War, but were already in uniform when the U.S. entered it. I still remember some of their stories; about fighting the Japanese, about the surrender in the Philippines, and about the Baatan Death March and the horrific captivity which followed.

Lessons?

(Don't Lose & Never Surrender.)

"Among the things we can learn was that this great nation of ours is a lot more resilient than most people think, and that includes myself in my darker moments.

We were attacked in an act of utmost perfidy, ambushed by an enemy who, although professing to worship honor, had none himself. We were hit hard, hit to the point where many wondered if we’d ever get up again from the initial blow, hit at a point in our history where our military was, compared to other nations already at war for two long years, barely in its infancy."

Resiliency is a word much bandied about in certain, Homeland Security, circles.

This does not, by itself, discredit the concept; far from it. If anything, it's a good sign that the quality, and its necessity, is recognized even today.

(A few words about DHS: While I am sympathetic to the notion that they have an impossible job, I also yield to no one when it comes to skepticism about how their missions are being implemented. Indeed, from a business-case standpoint, I wonder whether some of their self- and/or Congress-assigned missions are things that the federal government is best suited to do or whether they need to be done at all. By anyone. That being said, I suffer from a serious case of cognitive dissonance when I try reconcile the very serious and smart working agents and intelligence analysts whose work I admire which the absolute and apparent public bone-headedness exhibited by their policy-makers.)

"Few at the time thought that the United States would be a force to be reckoned with for years after that if ever, but all of the pessimists were proven wrong. In one year, the United States was strong, getting ready to fight a war on not one but two fronts. In a mere two years, the tide had turned and in a relatively short two more years, the United States would be the strongest military force this world had ever seen."

Ten years later the U.S. would have to re-build that military force, virtually from scratch.

There's a lesson there, for those paying attention to military funding debates.

"The resilience, the determination, the “can do” spirit, the love of country, the willingness to sacrifice and our endless optimism and belief in ourselves and the righteousness of our cause, that has always made us unique as a nation. That is what that poo-poo’ed “American Exceptionalism” is all about, and we’re blessed to have it because without it we wouldn’t be here."

There's also the little matter of being both a continental and a sea power, with an unmatched industrial bases and tremendous natural resources.

But without the human resources, those would not have sufficed.

"The Americans of 1941 didn’t moan and cry that defeat was inevitable, that the fleet was crushed, that our enemies were too strong and on the offensive (and you have to keep in mind that December of 1941 was the high water mark of the Axis Powers) and that the best we could do was to compromise, to drag out the inevitable and hope for the best.

They rolled up their damn sleeves and decided that, come what may, it was time to kick some ass. That victory would be ours no matter what it took, no matter how long it took, and that anything short of total, crushing, unconditional victory was NOT an option. Like the Brits at the time of the Battle of Britain when all seemed lost, we shrugged it off and went to work, confident in our cause and our ultimate victory." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

As at least some of us still do today.

"Some say that we don’t have that spirit anymore. I wonder at times myself. But then again I look at our generation’s youngsters who keep going back into the breach, believing as those grandparents and great-grandparents of theirs, that victory comes only to those who never give up, that this is a fight worth fighting because the alternative to victory is not worth living with.

Yes, we have grown a bit soft as a result of decades of affluence and indifference to our nation’s enemies march through our institutions, but even though this is our darkest hour, we still have what it takes to beat back the forces of darkness and prevail in the end. It’s been done before. Our nation has faced perils larger than ours, yet here we are.

The only way we can lose is if we give up the fight before the fight is over." (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA.)

It's that next "Greatest Generation" that even TIME magazine believed in for approximately 45 minutes. They haven't given up and if their victories are micturated away, there'll be Hell to pay.

_____

* Encouragement in the original sense of intended to instill courage.

12/7

re: "A new Great Generation?"

Guest poster Free0352 at blonde sagacity ("the conservative that liberals hate to love") laid out the generational implications for America.

Money quote(s):

"The 9/11 Generation? I guess it's as good a name as any. I was born at the tail end of Generation X in 1979. However, I grew up more Nu-Metal than Grunge. We were tech savvy, introspective kids - we didn't have much in common with our weepy, overly socially conscious older siblings. The X'ers were individuals, we were almost collective joiners. If the Boomers had Woodstock, the X'ers had Kirk Cobain's death and a youth of unmatched prosperity they didn't appreciate and complained constantly about... we had Columbine and a certain stained blue dress. Nobody expected much from us beyond the hope we wouldn't become addicted to Ecstasy and blow each other away at school. The Boomers and X'ers screamed at the world, they wanted to be heard. We were quiet and withdrawn - encased in our computers off in la-la land. If Bob Dillon spoke to the world and Kirk Cobain screamed at it the best we could muster was a lengthy text message. We didn't want to be heard. As children of divorce when we grew to become young adults, we wanted to belong.

Then some of us went to war. Less than 1% of Americans serve today in the military. That's a pretty far cry from the WWII Generation, who even if they didn't go away to war stayed home and fed the arsenal of democracy and made huge sacrifices in austerity to see the war effort through. Back then celebrities sold war bonds, today they call us war criminals. Did this generation sacrifice. Well, 1% of them did.

Many Boomers lost their innocence in the jungles of Vietnam, forced into a war they had not interest in fighting via the draft. It was traumatic for all concerned, and veterans did their best to forget and civilians did their best to ignore them. We haven't been forgotten, we've been honored and thanked and taken care of better than our WWII forbears. We were even TIME's 2003 "Person" OF THE YEAR. When you thank us, we awkwardly thank you back and carry on. We don't expect all this, and wonder why the Vietnam veterans didn't get it. We wish you'd thank them." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

The young troops, who are the captains and staff NCOs (and below) who enlisted or were commissioned after 9/11 do make up the bulk of this 1%. They joined a post-Vietnam, post-Reagan build-up (and post-Cold War draw-down) military which had as its architects the military leadership which cut its teeth in Vietnam. While most of those (Boomer) prime movers retired in the decade after Gulf War I, today's military remains their legacy.

The more senior troops of this 1% are themselves either Boomers or X-ers. And having been among them, I learned to have a full measure of respect for what I then termed "the Nintendo generation" but which had even then already moved on to the XBox.

"My generation is very pain averse... so seeking out discomfort and pain was the ultimate act of rejection and rebellion. My generation suffered the highest divorce rates of any before it. My peers and I were young men raised by women. Most of my fellow Marines were looking for something masculine. The ultimate rejection of the female way of life forced on us at home, in school, and in popular culture. We were sick of everyone getting a trophy just for playing. We wanted to see what we were made of when mommy wasn't there to pick us up when we fell. The Marines were our own little Fight Club. It's mostly that way for Soldiers too."

Mostly. Although the "be all that you can be" mentality was sadly replaced by someDamnthing or another even as Uncle Sam's Misguided Children kept a death grip on their "looking for a few good men" brand.

"It seemed the longer I was part of the Military Culture the more alien civilians became. It was like I was from strange foreign culture to them, and they to me. I was from Accountability, Responsibility, No-Excuses Land, they from somewhere else that involved MTV, video games and complaining. I found myself gravitating more to Vietnam and WWII veterans than people my own age, whom I had nothing in common with anymore.

Now after ten years we are coming home for real - for ever. Coming home and staying there. The military is drawing down in the next few years, 45,000 Soldiers alone will be forced out of the only home we've known for a decade. Likely many more will follow as the Air Force and Navy contract even more. Some veterans have done a tour or two, others as many as eight. Now we put down our gear and take off our uniforms and look around and find ourselves on that alien planet called America and wonder what to do now. We are not part of whatever this generation is called. We're it's aliens. Prodigal son's returned home. Very alien, very different.

No, The 9/11 Generation isn't special in and of it's self. But 1% of it is, because unlike our peers we don't consider ourselves special. We've been part of a team. Today we're banding together, taking care of each other as we did in war. In a way we're the newest wave of refugees from Iraq or Afghanistan - the places that have dominated every segment of our lives these last ten years." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

CAA hopes earnestly that this group of "refugees" doesn't inflict its national cuisine (MREs) on America the way other immigrant groups usually do.

"We are taking our rightful place in America. We're running for Congress, starting businesses, we're in your neighborhood. Our peers whine about everything, they are slow and weak and complain constantly when they don't get a trophy simply for playing. But we're out there, under the radar now. Different. Alien. But like our Greatest Generation Grandfathers we might save you - though there are considerably fewer of us.

So is this over all, the Second Greatest Generation? Probably not. But we veterans - the tiny 1% might be. Maybe what America needs to save it, are a few veterans? Why not, they certainly did after WWII? Perhaps the Military loss is America's gain?

Soon thousands of disciplined, hard working, courageous, focused young people will be injected into the labor force or graduate college on the Post 9/11 GI Bill. America is a wreck and it's only going to get worse... but we veterans have seen failed states and anarchy and worse. This bad economy and chaos doesn't scare us. We've fixed broken countries before in far worse condition."

For values of "fix," of course. Hopefully the U.S. won't pose the sort of obstacles ("Mahdi Army," Taliban, AQI, &tc.) that the other ones did.

"We don't have an "entitlement mentality," our greatest gift is our "NO EXCUSES" mentality. We've learned to do, and do it quietly, without thanks or complaint. We've learned the world isn't fair, and not to quit. In short, the war gave us the tools our peers lack to make it in this economy, or any economy. We reshaped the most volatile piece of geography on Earth, the United States should be easy in comparison.So will whoever gets elected in 2012 save us? Maybe. But don't trust to that. Trust to that small, tiny 1% of young Americans. I have had the chance to witness them do things that defy imagination, both in work and in heroism. Wait to you see it in your neighborhood."

&

"It's been a lot longer than any of us thought, and it's still not completely over. But now we are beginning to come home - and we bring with us our skills, our discipline, our hard work, and our heroism. It's as if all that was good in the post 9/11 Generation were encapsulated in this small band of brothers... the 1% that can change the tide... coming to a neighborhood near you."

9/7