And yes, boys and girls, it's November 11th, Veteran's Day (formerly Armistice Day, before we began numbering successive World Wars). The day when, by federal decree, you not only get a bank holiday and a three-day weekend for something most of you never did, but you're nominally supposed to remember the almost literal real three-percenters who've actually served to give you other slacker 97% the freedom to ignore and spit on us the rest of the year (something at which a growing number of the populace truly excel, even compared to the yardstick of the late 1960s, which is really saying something).
I jest (a tiny bit, and with a modicum of bile), given what's probably the overwhelmingly respectful and decent readership hereabouts, no small number of whom are in that three percent club, but unlike Memorial Day (which some civilian idiot lackwits still can't comprehend is for The Fallen), today is the day for everyone who served - honorably - in the republic's military forces.
Which honor, along with about $5, gets us one cup of burned coffee at Starbuck's 24/7/365.
But as we don't yet live in the Heinleinian Utopia where only we proven worthies get to vote, and the rest of you get to lump it, we will content ourselves knowing that we few, we happy few, are your betters, whether we have this day or not, mainly because we don't spend the other 364 days a year reminding you of the fact, nor refer to our elected leader as el heneral and Maximum Leader For Life, unlike so many of our neighbors in this and other hemispheres' Republiques de Bananes.
We'd really be happy if you lot could manage to simply salute the flag instead of burning it or wiping your hindquarters with it, sing the anthem standing up, show the barest minimum of courtesy to them and the republic for which they stand, and generally, not make us regret the sacrifices we make or made on your behalf, and simply treat your citizenship in the greatest country on earth as the unbelievable honor and privilege it is, and simply exercise it with an appropriately small measure of respect and the teensiest of gratitude to those who make it possible. That shouldn't be too much to ask of those among the population who enjoy all the benefits, without ever having taken so much as a physical exam.
But if even that minimal effort is too challenging for those douchenozzles who deserve nothing so much as a healthy bitch-slapping with a tire iron, we'd settle for their simple respectful silence, just for a day.
And hey, you're welcome. The hours were rotten, the pay was a joke, the sacrifices cannot be measured, it's years of my life I'll never get back, some of us died for being in the club, even in "peacetime", but we got to meet the greatest bunch of people in the world: our brothers and sisters in arms.
And as in the rest of life, the friends we gather are generally life's way of apologizing to us all for the relatives we were saddled with at birth.
I happened to be in Denver today and decided to go down to the Civic Center and join in the celebration. It was a fabulous parade and huge. The central interstate running through Denver, I-25, was bumper to bumper prior to the start of the parade. I was pretty happily surprised.
ReplyDeleteA good time was had by all. Now whether the import was realized by everyone, especially the small ones remains to be seen. I was however, quite moved watching the vets proudly marching.
I also would like to give a thanks to the family members who lost time with their veteran loved ones. Some civilians are ungrateful, actually most are, even if they don't know it. And I'm sure some family members are too. But my wife and kids, my parents and siblings, and all veterans' family members who were anything like my own, deserve a small word as well.
ReplyDeleteAnother GREAT post Aesop. Today is a day in my family where the Vets call each other. There are three generations of us still on the planet (one still in uniform).
ReplyDeleteI pray that our country's uniform will still be worthy of my grandson, whether he chooses to write the check or not.
Boat Guy
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-11/plague-fears-grow-new-virus-no-cure-appears-worse-black-death
ReplyDeleteThis serious?
What antibiotics do you recommend stockpiling in general?
Most basic non-compound abs are availlable as fish medicine in same form as for humans. Code #s on pill or capsule exactly same b-c they come from same manufacturer.
On this date I usually go back and read a stack of letters one of my kin wrote back home during WWI. They're not works of literary greatness, just simple heartfelt letters home from a fine young man to the loved ones he missed. He never did anything heroic that we ever knew, in fact we don't think he even seen a single German. He died in the influenza epidemic and wasn't killed by a German shell but he was dead just the same. He was just a young farmer who left home when his nation called and never came home again. Like millions of other young men in that dreadful war.
ReplyDeleteRIP Karl. All the Karls.
-- ...you're nominally supposed to remember the almost literal real three-percenters who've actually served to give you other slacker 97% the freedom to ignore and spit on us the rest of the year. --
ReplyDeleteThat is uncalled-for arrogance. We of the 97% you disdain made your service possible. We paid the taxes that provided for every facet and element of your soldiering. We supported you with our purchases of War Bonds. We've practically fallen over backwards in praising you and thanking you. And a great many of us worked at making the weapons you wielded, or learned to wield, rather than at higher-paying occupations elsewhere in the private sector.
You want thanks? You get more of that today than any class of veterans in America's history. You want praise? See previous answer. But don't expect either of those conditions to continue if you make a practice of sneering at us, simply because we never donned the uniform.
Also in today's news: https://www.thedailybeast.com/green-beret-discovered-seals-illicit-cash-then-he-was-killed
ReplyDelete"Green Beret Discovered SEALs’ Illicit Cash. Then He Was Killed.
[...]
Melgar, two special operations sources say, discovered the SEALs were pocketing some of the money from the informant fund. The SEALS offered to cut him in, but Melgar declined, these sources said.
It is unknown what specifically started the June 4 altercation at 5 a.m. but it escalated. Melgar lost consciousness—and, worse, stopped breathing. The SEALs attempted to open an airway in Melgar’s throat, officials said. It is unknown whether Melgar died immediately. The SEALs and another Green Beret, according to former AFRICOM officials, drove to a nearby French clinic seeking help. Melgar was dead when he arrived at the clinic, the official said. Asphyxiation was the cause of death."
Sounds possibly like a sleeper hold gone bad, if the collapsed airway was in fact an accident...
Well said!
ReplyDeletePorretto,
ReplyDeleteSo, we were just your whores doing doing what you never had the balls to do yourself.