Holiday

Veterans' Day, as we call this armistice day, is usually referred to as a 'holiday' which seems wildly inappropriate to me. We Americans seem to have a rather uneasy relationship with our veterans. 

We entered World War II only when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but it did pull us out of the depression and put us on the fast track toward being an industrialized nation. We took care of returning veterans. My father bought our family's first house on the GI Bill.

Following World War II this country has been involved in a series of wars that never resolved anything. Warfare had changed, and so did the attitude toward the veterans. There was so much opposition to the Vietnam War in this country that when the veterans returned home they were not met with cheering crowds. Those vets had been fighting in a whole new kind of war which nobody seemed to want or care to understand.Many of them are still homeless,.

As the wars have become less comprehensible and more protracted and the enemy has been both more brutal and less well defined, we have learned to show more appreciation to the vets when they come home, but we have not given them the medical, psychological and financial support they need to transition to civilian life. 

It is difficult for civilians to honor the veterans of a war they don't support, It is difficult for veterans to explain the horrors of the war they fought in good faith. 

Veterans' Day is not a 'holiday' but should be a day when everyone pledges to take care not only of veterans, but of their spouses and families who have made tremendous sacrifices. If we don't put our money where our mouths are,  we are just paying lip service to all those who fight for our country.