Veterans Day 2026
And when they ask us
How dangerous it was
Oh, we'll never tell them
No, we'll never tell them
We spent our pay in some cafe
And fought wild women night and day
'Twas the cushiest job we ever had
And when they ask us
And they're certainly going to ask us
The reason why we didn't win
The Croix de Guerre
Oh, we'll never tell them
No, we'll never tell them
There was a front
But damned if we knew where
--Cole Porter
Facebook is filled with photos posted by friends from their, our, time in the service. Here's mine.
Look at me! Thank me for my service! Or, as my close friend at the time Fasty phrased it, when thinking about a name for a postwar tour to cash in on our recent victory in Iraq, "A Grateful Nation Buys Us Beer".
We never got anywhere with that.
Actually, Fasty's first idea he called "Sympathy F*ck 1991", but that one never got any traction, either.
It's nice to have sunshine blown up my keister every November, but don't things get more complicated as we get older and reflect on it all?
I fall into a relatively small cohort among the throngs of veterans vying for your adoration today. Actually, let me correct that---I'm not vying for your adoration, but rather reflecting on the meaning of those years. It's what we all should be doing today, if we're going to give the occasion any attention at all.
My impression is that not many veterans have actually seen the elephant, and been shot at and missed. Something like 36% of all veterans served in a combat zone. In my experience there were thousands on that anthill we inhabited at Dhahran Air Base, and all therefore served in a combat zone, but less than a hundred of us ever crossed the fence and had the "thrill" of seeing a tracer or three whizz past the cockpit.
Or maybe the more important distinction isn't whether you've had someone shoot at you, but rather whether you've pulled the trigger or hit the pickle button. Taking fire doesn't generally cause much long-term damage unless you have an eggshell psyche (but don't tell the VA!); shooting someone changes a person, however, except for the 10% among us who enjoy it. Those guys tend to be the most important in any military organization, given that our job was, at its core, to kill people and break things.
And what of it? Why did it matter? Why a parade today down Harrison Avenue to honor veterans for their service?
At some level I think it gives America a free pass from having to think about what war really means, what its continued existence as an arm of policy says about how little progress we've made as a species. And the American variation on the theme is among the most pungent, except perhaps the Russians, insofar as we insist the effort was to preserve "freedom"--we haven't fought a defensive war in what, 85 years? The actual purpose of the killing and blowing up property is also a little fuzzy, in hindsight. My time over there was spent defending the massive U.S. and British investment in petroleum infrastructure in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Full stop.
Or, in my favorite bit of absurd black humor, we have the headmaster at the English boys' school in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life announcing the memorial service for all the lads from there lost "to keep China British".
Then there's the sacrifice bit.
What, exactly, did I sacrifice? The United States Air Force paid my way at a fine private university, gave me discipline and purpose when I was just a relatively smart screw-up with a penchant for excessive beer drinking and cutting class. Then they taught me to fly, a gift that keeps on giving to this day.
But Donk, the threat of instant death! Don't you remember that part?
Yes, some quite scary stuff at the time. No really--I can't even describe to you if you haven't been there the feeling the very first time the sky fills with tracers, and they're aiming at you. It's rather personal. It does, however, get less terrifying as the scene repeats itself and you keep not dying, sort of a distraction while you're scanning the radar and trying to keep track of what's going on all around you.
And, looking at this flabby and failing old frame, I ponder that a well placed piece of shrapnel would have spared me the indignity of my current senescence.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Peg will be sore at me for writing that, and in fact I'm quite grateful for this life we have together, despite the embarrassing physical decline.
Binyon wrote those words, above, a month into the First World War. The poetry got a lot less dewy eyed as a whole generation of young men died for a cause we can't quite figure out now from the vantage point of over a century later, having seen what we've seen in the space since then. It's all folly, human folly and tragedy with a sprinkling of courage and selflessness, all wrapped in a shiny uniform with a chest full of baubles. Wearing my dress blues back then, with all those ribbons and wings and such, I almost felt like winking at the other guy with the same gaudy and meaningless display, as if we all were in on the same joke. And if they ask us, oh we'll never tell them.
11.11.26
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