By Reg Doty
I go to the hardware store with Jenise so she can take advantage of my 10% veteran’s discount and the cashier always thanks me for my service. Because my legs are messed up, I try to park in the spot reserved for vets to be closer to the entrance and people sometimes thank me for my service. When I go to the VA hospital for health issues they always thank me for my service. A while back I got a stopped for not wearing my seat-belt. I let the Highway Patrol officer get a peek at my VA ID card. Well, she gave me a ticket anyway, but before she left thanked me for my service. I told her that when I was young, handsome, and smooth that I would have charmed my way out of the ticket. She said “Want to bet?” So, I just thanked her for her service and we both laughed.
Sometimes I forget that when someone thanks us for our service that it isn’t really for us, but for them: After all we were just doing our bit while they may have experienced some related guilt. Now with all the years gone by, I don’t think about it much anymore, especially with a first-hand account and more than enough to forget, with some left over.
I often think of The Wall though, and realize that the “Thank you” cliché seems hollow against that long black tableau of heart-ache and suffering. But for folks who lost someone in the cause of service, the sacrifice and quilt must be as horrendous as for those of us who somehow escaped the timeless engraving. Yet to be reminded about walking in someone else’s boots for magnitude of their thanks.
The Vietnam war was different in that Walter Cronkite and television brought it past our front doors into our dining rooms. We all fought that damned war, just ask a Kent State survivor. But we can’t go around thanking everyone for their service, so we thank the guys who endured the heat and humidity, the leeches and the snakes, or the mayhem of a booby-trapped 155 mm howitzer shell against our frail bodies. I’m glad most never saw those things which, after all, was far more than ever should have come around.
I would care to think that “Thank You For Your Service” is more of an atonement in general, perhaps especially Vietnam. Sadly, it is spoken in the same breath we speak when devoid of real meaning, like “Have A Nice Day,” or “Sorry” when someone cuts us off, at the grocery store. Here’s one: I was in our old Safeway limping up to the cashier, driving my cane, ready to pay cash for some Talc-Free Gold Bond Medicated Extra Strength Triple-Action Body Powder for absorbing moisture, controlling odor, and relieving itches, when this exquisitely beautiful blond woman, pushing a shopping cart, sped up and careened in front of me, knocking me out of her way, and giving me the I dare you look.
Not to be deterred, I used the handle of my ” and pulled her cart back then slipped in front of it. She screamed about how I could cruelly bully her like that and called me a punk prick bastard. I ignored the assault when she said that if her husband was there, he’d teach me a thing or two about my antiwoman, misogynist behavior and that she had a mind to slap me silly. Then she went on about me being the reason Donald Trump wants to make America great again because of people like me. I then told her that I can’t imagine what her husband sees in her to put up with her gibberish, and if she was my wife I’d give her a good spanking and that she would probably like and want some more. Everyone was cracking up. She then turned red and demanded that I not talk to her.
When my turn at the register came up I handed the cashier cash, and left, but not before sticking my tongue out at her and saying “sorry, and have a nice day.” She stood there and stamped her foot and called me a chauvinistic pig!
Yes, I do care that people want to thank us for our service, That it is a way for many people to feel better from having to sit on the sidelines, no matter their position on war, or why we fight. Our duty is to our country and the people we love, and whether there is a double standard when it comes to speaking out, I thought Nuremberg trials handled that. So, get used to telling the boys who make it home “Thank You For Your Service” and feel how good it is to be able to appreciate those words.
