Salute

We interrupt your regularly scheduled inane dipshittery for a few moments of real-life, honest to God (Buddha, Mohammed, Bodhisattva…your choice) sober reflection and gratitude.

I’m the son of a U.S. Army officer. I grew up on a series of military bases and towns around the world, places that hummed with the low, steady buzz of discipline and order. I remember watching soldiers on parade during the various ceremonies and drills that characterize active military installations, their instinctive, unspoken camaraderie something I found elusive and comforting at the same time. Not to go full Jessup, but in that atmosphere it's impossible to fail to realize that there really are brave young men manning a post, standing on that wall for you.

I’d find my own faint facsimile of this esprit de corps later as a member of any number of sports teams, but I realized fairly early that my lack of discipline and impolitic disposition disqualified me from military service. Not early enough to stop me from making an ill-fated decision to enter William & Mary’s ROTC program, but pretty damn shortly thereafter. I don’t think I even lasted a semester. I probably still owe the Army money for uniforms.

In a great many ways, I actively resisted the hardness, the discipline, the structure of a military life. And in a great many more ways, I was shaped by it. I probably still don't understand how much.

But I've always been struck by the courage, selflessness, and professionalism of the U.S. Armed Forces. All the moreso today, as the stresses of multi-theater combat test the physical and mental resources of all from the lowliest enlisted men and women to the most celebrated Generals, even at home, as we found out this week. This is one topic about which the goofy bloggers here at G:TB won't crack wise. Unless we're talking about West Point's football uniforms.

To the uniformed men and women in harm's way and elsewhere, thank you and Godspeed on this Veterans Day. Your sacrifice is well and truly noted and appreciated beyond our capability to express it. We'll set politics aside today and close by quoting the President's words, spoken yesterday in honor of those killed and injured at Fort Hood.

I think all of us - every single American - must acknowledge that this generation has more than proved itself the equal of those who have come before.

We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.

This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in a time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations - all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.