Please Don't Thank Me For My Service - Veterans Day 2008
Veterans Day Any Year
Written by Hal Muskat
I'm thinking right now of The Wall in DC. Of trips to the Armory with
my dad, a WWII vet. I'm thinking of those two hundred names and faces I
can't remember, eighteen and nineteen year old boys from my Basic
Training company, KIA before their 20th birthdays. I've seen their
names on that wall while looking for my own.
Every time I hear, "Thank-you for serving!" I want to reply, "Fuck You!"
For which of the following are you thanking me:
a) learning how to do field abortions on "pregnant gook girls";
b) Being part of a military that is responsible for millions of deaths in Vietnam;
c) Refusing orders to Vietnam;
d) Participating in the GI Movement;
e) Thinking for myself;
f) Not thinking for myself;
g) Following or not following orders?
As a member of the United States Army from 1965 - 1970, I was NOT
defending America, our allies, your families or friends. America was
NOT being attacked by the Vietnamese, much in the same way that America
is NOT being attacked by Iraqis.
I for one, do NOT thank current soldiers for their service in Iraq or
Afghanistan! I thank and honor those who repudiate this nation's
militarism. I thank Iraq Veterans Against the War for their thought,
action and lives. I thank those veterans who organized and testified at
the IVAW Winter Soldier Hearings last year and who continue to give
witness to atrocity and mayhem. ivaw.org/wintersoldier/testimony
On Veteran's Day, I salute, in addition to IVAW, Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, Veterans For Peace, The National Liberation Front of
Vietnam, WWII Allied Forces led by General Dwight Eisenhower;
Resistance fighters against the nazi's throughout Europe; Resistance
movements from South Africa to South Harlem, from Philadelphia to
Nicaragua where my government spent millions attempting to overthrow a
democratic government who's president had the nerve to be critical of
the United States.
I do salute those who choose to defend America. Go get the bad guy,
McCain will tell you right where he is, but why thank anyone for
killing tens of thousands of civilians cause you can't find the right
cave and invaded the wrong nation? Should I thank today's soldiers for
being lied to and believing in that lie? Perhaps their "good
intentions" deserve a salute?
On this Veteran's Day, I again salute those veterans, from the armed
forces of all nations who use their training, intelligence and
compassion to seek ways in which our governments can find peace without
increased militarization of the globe and our ways of life.
You may thank me, and I'd be honored, for my resistance to imperial
war, for my support of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, for my
continued activism that nourishes my soul and gives me reason to live
and create.
Just don't blindly thank me for anything you don't know about.
Perhaps that's why I can't seem to find my name on that Wall in a waking state.