Editor’s Note: This is a holiday weekend that has nuance. It is solemn remembrance in part, and the start of the summer season for most. Marlow takes a look at a now-common greeting in the context of his time. If you had a ‘draft number’ in your memory, you will share some of them.

– Vic

Back in the distant bad old Vietnam days, I heard now and then mutterings as I traipsed through an off-base grocery store on my way home from the job in my service dress blues. Nothing specific and just barely audible. Its tone had whiffs of shit-talking. I never reacted, preferring to just press on with the task at hand — formula for the #2, a couple of jars of Gerbers, and so on.

Soon thereafter, base commanders at the direction of the Pentagon, started issuing standing orders directing us to not stop in civilian establishments while in uniform to, from or while at work.

What a pain. But stories had already started filtering in from various points of the compass in those pre-internet days of the early 70s about the greetings we uniforms were receiving while out in CIVLANT or CIVPAC. It reminded me of how French university students yapped at the central French government’s internal security forces during France’s days of real physical revolutionary rage of the late 60s in Paris. Sorta scary but keeping your head down on cafés’ outdoor tables with arms outstretched, palms up and American passports handheld aloft kept one almost safe with just light baton taps from the cops to let us know who was truly in charge.

Today like then, our national politics seem paralyzed by albeit far less violent partisanship. What I see here in the Empire is local governments and institutions coming together with ordinary citizens getting things done.

Understanding that our local working togetherness is seen by the beltway as foolish 60’s kumbaya, so I’d only ask our DC leadership cadres to do just one “bring us together” thing: the immediate implementation of a national service requirement designed, in addition to fulfilling defense manpower requirements, to begin the long process of filling in the gap (chasm) separating our civilian and military populations.

(Permit me this brief aside: given my above memories of the early 70s, it is beyond tiresome to have people nowadays approach veterans, hunched over, shyly invoking the “Thank you for your service (TYFYS)” thing, something that to my addled mind is more an apology than a sincere expression of gratitude. I would rather they be honest and say what they really mean: “I’m glad it was you and not me.”)

If they want to make it universal, fine. That is, fine for women. But I am not talking about Meals-on-Wheels for young men. For them, I mean military service (2 years minimum). Hell, we’re going to need lots of them when it’s time to fight the Great Pacific War anyway. And, in the process, we can also insist that our political leaders, very few of whom have studied, much less known war, can stop using the armed forces a laboratory for the hobby horses of progressivism.

Yeah . . . I know . . . fat effing chance.

I’ve been off duty (i.e., retired) coming up on nearly 30 years, and have yet to be asked by any young uns without military service in their or their family backgrounds about the jobs or tasks I did or how I felt during such and such. All these types do is endlessly “tap-talk” on their devices. Even after you get to know them, they never ever ask.

I guess it’s easier for many of them to just thank us rather than understand what we did and what we gave up.

Even years before I retired, I knew I needed something to replace my military mission sense/purpose that filled and fed my mind, heart, and soul. So, I chose to feed the hungry. I did that inside the beltway and down in the Keys for decades before joining some fellow vets to stand up an American Legion motorcycle riding chapter down in the islands. I and several other charter members stipulated our involvement had to have as its central purpose works of charity – helping those in need with all of the funds we raised. Well, we did that, but something was still missing.

Two of us found it finally — service to our wounded who were returning from Iraq and Afghanistan — those whom the system was not supporting. We old and wily ones had rolodexes, contact networks and a way with words that top level bureaucrats would recognize as strong “or else” suggestions. Did that for years without having to say TYFYS to any of these deserving but needy folks.

Sometimes it’s just the simple things, values perhaps, like honor, duty, and commitment that matter, never having left us despite what our DD-214 separation papers said about our active service termination.

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Effing A!

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