Today America pretends we once were part of one team

It's Veterans Day, and I am a veteran. My near-the-end-of-the-Vietnam War service mostly consisted of office work -- I was assigned to base funds management -- and I spent my nearly three years in the Air Force in England and then a short, very cold stint in Grand Forks, ND. 

I was released a full year early from my four-year enlistment due to the war winding down and the Pentagon trying to cut expenses, and that worked well for me. In the early 1970s, GI Bill money was earned by the month, up to 36 months, and I ended up using all my 35 months in getting my BA and MA.

It is quite easy for people my age to share memories of "back in the day" and to claim that they don't understand much of today's problems and issues. My wife and I were talking just today about how we earned very little from our full-time jobs in the 1970s, but how we DID enjoy some "subsidies" that really helped us out as our family began.

For instance, for quite a few years we were free to stop by the locker and grab as much beef and pork as was available from my grandfather's account. We were a bit spoiled, I know, but it was quite something to be able to drive to Gay's Locker in Iowa City and grab packages of hamburger and roasts and steaks... all "free." Thanks, Gramps.

My education expenses -- tuition and books -- were covered by GI Bill, so that was another welcome subsidy. For a couple years we lived rent-free in an old former country schoolhouse my grandparents owned, and that allowed us to save enough money to buy our first house.

Veterans Day is a weird sort of holiday, originally created to honor Armistice Day (11-11, 11 p.m.) when the fighting officially ended WWI. That original holiday connected directly with peace and not war.

I'm not sure what Veterans Day now represents. I hope it still has something to do with peace but we are not a nation much interested in discussing peace and the future.

Most Americans not only haven't served in the Armed Forces but have not experienced the deprivations of war. We hired some of our neighbors to go off and fight in the Middle East, etc., but most people were and are blissfully ignorant of the fighting and suffering in far-off places. 

We will celebrate veterans during church this coming Sunday and the choir will sing "America." We vets will stand up and get our flower and applause. 

And maybe we can get a free entrée at Old Chicago.