A SALUTE TO OUR PRESENT (AND FUTURE) VETERANS

Today we honor the men and women who have served in the defense of our country.  I think it's important to remember that these people were men and women when they signed up to fight for us.  That is, they were adults, not boys and girls.  I make this point because there is a tendency to infantilize those who have chosen to wear the uniform today and are now risking life and limb in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other faraway theaters in our global war against Islamist terrorists.

Too often we talk of them as though they are children who committed themselves to a cause without quite comprehending the horrors of combat that they might face.  Indeed, we literally call them children, boys, girls.  We talk of them as though they are helpless in their plight, mere pawns of the dark machinations of powerful men.  We pity them for the blood they shed.  We think of them as victims.

Too seldom we honor them for the courage of their convictions, that proud patriotism to put themselves, unlike most of us, in hazard's way.  Even when we acknowledge the dignity of their duty, we balk at attaching any glory or adventure to it.  We become mute because we must not let anything good or decent come from the reason for a soldier's being:  War.  But regretting war should not translate into regretting the choice so many men and women make to be soldiers.  Their choice is an act of charity, because they risk what is most dear to them to protect what is most dear to us.

So let us also honor, not pity or regret, our future veterans, those men and women bearing arms for us now.