A few weekends ago me, my sister and my father went to the National Museum of the United State Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. It was my father’s 80th birthday and the museum was on his “bucket list.” He’s an airplane guy (and car guy and train guy and boat guy). The museum collection is one of a kind with airplanes that exist nowhere else and some that I could not believe still existed.
As at any military museum along with the patriotic themes there’s a darker note of sacrifice and loss. This was dangerous work and many never went home again. Throughout the museum are plaques honoring the lost. And the rate of survival for some combat missions was so low that the miracle of survival is celebrated.
And yes, many of these wars can be considered “problematic” to use the parlance of our times, but it is an objective statement that overall, in the fights against fascism and communism, America fought the good fight and made the world a better place. A lot of people were trying to escape East Berlin after all; not too many were going the other way.
These harsh experiences created bonds. The stress, horror and effort in the face of violence bind veterans together like no other process. This is why they are revered in American culture and have two days to honor them; Veterans Day for the living, and Memorial Day for the dead.
That bond of service makes the status of “veteran” something special. When you serve in the military the categories of man, woman, white black and brown, rich and poor fade away under the pressure of service and combat. In they end, we are all simply veterans. And because of this flattening effect on our identities, veterans demonstrate the perfect melting pot of American culture where we all are equal, and if when we’re not, we strive to be so and fulfill the American ideal. The example of veterans leads the way.
Well, the Veterans Administration no longer thinks so:
From the article:
“I remember early on, I want to say spring 2021, especially when we were starting to launch a lot of our racial equity work within the Homeless Programs Office, that was a pretty common bit of feedback," Liu said during a February podcast episode. "I would probably also categorize it as a little bit of criticism, right? Which was very well meaning, you know, dedicated staff who were grappling with this idea that the values that were instilled in them were you treat everybody the same, right? That discrimination is bad and you treat everybody the same. And if you treat everybody the same, that's the morally righteous thing to do."
"And those folks who had that feedback … you could see in like real time," Liu went on, "they were kind of grappling with that concept because in many ways what we're talking about today is, number one, providing tailored different solutions for different things, but also this understanding that because people are situated in society differently, they come from different barriers, they come from different challenges."
"Like treating everybody the same might not be enough for some," Liu said.
The status of veteran supersedes all other identities and replaces them with “veteran,” “patriot,” and “American.” Since our dear colleagues on the Radical Left are opposed to the last two identities they have to attack and degrade the first identity. Split veterans apart in their component oppressor/victim groups and make sure they can’t bind together as their own category with their own shared experiences that factually contradict the ideology that people of disparate races, sexes and economic background couldn’t possibly understand one another and bond together as one people.
But why veterans? We’re only about 6% of the population. Seems a rather small group to attack. Well, in one of Matt Taibbi’s censorship industrial complex leaks last week there’s a hint:
Introducting the Censorship Files
“an email suggesting “veterans,” “elders,” and residents of “rural communities” traffic in disinformation and are “participating in that demonization” of “historically underrepresented communities”
Veterans have now made the naughty list according to the illiberal Left authoritarians. They claim that veterans (and old people and rural people) are just inherently bad and “demonize” the designated victims.
Why would the Left think that? Especially when veterans do the exact opposite—demonstrate the transcendence of oppressor/victim by being a people bound by experience?
Could it be that veterans, by stint of having done the difficult thing and dealt with reality at its harshest, are in a better place to correctly criticize the excesses of our pathetic and out-of-touch leadership? Or that by having served time in the worst places on the planet, when the get home they appreciate America far more than those who never leave the comfort of their elite conclaves? That the simple wondrous moment of seeing your loved ones again after months or years away makes a veteran say, I love my family, I love my country. And even those Americans who don’t serve in the military themselves see that love and they are inspired to love home, family, and country as well.
And we just can’t have that now, can we?
As for myself, I’m flying Old Glory from my front porch this weekend and you know, maybe it will stay out there all summer.
Thanks for this. I spent my Memorial Day remembering a few people in particular and memorializing the many who fell.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/in-memoriam?r=1neg52
A visit to a VA hospital goes a long way in reminding us the we are all the same. The level of respect, courtesy and dignity from and between Vets is astounding......reminding us that what binds us is stronger than what separates us.