Veteran’s Day Parade

Veteran’s Day Parade in a nation fighting two wars with no armistice for either in sight. I was working in the NYC office, saw bits of the parade during my lunch break. This U-Haul float was bizarre and sad. Now, I have nothing against this company and I have nothing against companies participating in any parade, showing community support and getting some good publicity while doing so. That’s fine and dandy. And, U-Haul is pretty cool; it’s truly a national company that helps a nation perpetually on the move to be on that move. It was this float that gave me a sour feeling. The three women were singing Karaoke Andrew Sisters, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree and Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy. Okay, I hate camp and camp was always presence in these songs even back when they were first popular, decades before they were popularized again by the Queen of Camp, Bette Midler. But this was different, fabricating nostalgia for when the entire nation welcomed and celebrated our soldiers. One reason for that nation-wide moment was that the entire nation, the rich and the poor, were involved in the sacrifice. The men were in battle, and you knew one of them and even if you didn’t, there was rationing, civil defense corps, a huge government-financed industrial revolution where Rosie made rivets. Daily life was filled with reminders. Everyone sacrificed knowing that millions of others were risking the ultimate sacrifice. Not today so much. Enlisted men and women (and their families) are a small percentage of our population. Maybe we feel bad when we see an Iraq or Afghanistan story in the news, but do we honestly feel as bad from that empathy than as we do from the potential of the current recession ruining the next ten years of our lives? Beyond putting We Support Our Troops magnetic ribbons on our cars, what else can we do? I don’t know the answer. But I sure feel depressed and disappointed seeing fabricated nostalgia for when we as a nation cared enough to honor those who fought for freedom in a contemporary Veteran’s Day Parade. We have to go back 70 years to find a symbol and music we can all coalesce around in a unified show of support for our Veterans. What is wrong with this picture? Why celebrate ancient USO tours when we can celebrate USO Tours of own era? I guess we need a reenactment of when we gave a shit about Veterans to substitute for honestly giving a shit. Shut up, give me one of those magnetic ribbons and lower my property taxes. I support the veterans of today , they say, as long as they keep out of my neighborhood!

Read the top line there, “Another Generation of Veterans. Right on! Right wing blow hards love to invoke the lie that it was the counter culture that shunned the soldiers returning from Vietnam. That’s not the truth at all. It was the so called Greatest Generation. The World War II vets who shunned them. They didn’t want those crazed, dirty long hairs in their VFW Hall. There were more members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War than in the VFW. World War II Vets didn’t want those who didn’t fight in the big war into their club. Vietnam was a police action, not a real war. Besides, we lost. It was the counter culture who struggled to stop the war and get our boys home, which was what the soldiers wanted because they know pieces of crap like Westmoreland were lying to the nation at the expense of their lives. It was the counter culture who supported Vets in their struggles for decent healthcare and the recognition of the effects from Agent Orange and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It was the counter culture that gave us films like Coming Home, Apocalypse Now, Platoon or records like Born in the USA or books like Going After Cacciato or Paco’s Story, which publicized what the soldiers went through. It was a “counter culture” president, Bill Clinton, who transformed the Veterans Association from a national disgrace to one of the best healthcare systems in the world! No one needs it spelled out. The so-called Greatest Generation let the Vietnam Veterans down. Baby Boomer Right wingers may treat the officers who come from elitist families, like John McCain, with honor and respect. But the grunts—those who enlisted or who weren’t lucky enough to get deferments like the chicken hawks back in the day or who today join the national guard to help pay for college and then are in Iraq dodging roadside bombs—the right wing sees them as saps. It’s the Vietnam Veterans who are leading the nation in taking care of the soldiers coming home form Iraq and Afghanistan. They do not want to commit the same sins as their fathers did.

I did some googling on this Satans Lil Angel. It may have been restored by the Military Transportation Organization of New Jersey. It’s not clear whether they plan to restore apostrophes.

Every few minutes, the parade came to a halt and the cops blew their whistles and waved manically for people to cross. Most of the groups marching in the parade looked like this, local middle age and getting older fellows, dressed in some remnant of the fatigues they used to wear. Informal, blithely disorganized. Attention and respect, never too much, never too late. Veterans have told me of their constant concern that their war and/or military experience will dominate their lives. One day a year though, they’ll do some Veteran’s Day stuff. I imagine it’s about celebrating life and memories, marching for those not here to do so.

Dress Uniforms. I don’t think they were doormen who wandered down from the Dakota. I wondered if they were part of some contingent of current soldiers giving official props to the forbears or just some guys who got into their dress blues to watch the parade.

High School Marching Band. The other called themselves a drum and bugle corps, but they seemed to be doing more gymnastics. Can’t have a parade without them. Actually you can, but be pleasant to young people and maybe they’ll carry on the tradition of public displays of tribute to those who served in our military. Maybe they will be able to do with more sincerity than simplistic nostalgia for the patriotism of an older generation.