There’s more to veterans than what you see from the outside

While it’s easy to point out the veterans who have paid a lot for their service from the outside, there are others among us who get overlooked because they don’t fit society’s perception of a veteran.

They don’t have a missing leg. They don’t suffer from PTSD. They might have an occasional backache but, all in all, they don’t have much to show, physically, for their hard service. At the Advocate, we believe it’s wrong to view veterans with a “poor them” mentality. We shouldn’t take a veteran out for dinner because they’re missing a leg. We should take a veteran out because they sacrificed to serve our country.

We get that we need to treat veterans for the ailments they suffer from, and definitely acknowledge that no matter how much or little they directly were involved with war, there are hurdles to overcome. But that’s how we should treat our service men and women: as overcomers. If they overcame and survived some of the most brutal experiences of their lives, shouldn’t we treat them as overcomers now? Maybe if we continue to view our veterans as heroes, perhaps it will ease their transition back to civilian life.

We still need to thank our older veterans for their service in World War II, Korea and Viet Nam. While not everyone may agree the wars were necessary, the fact is, right or wrong, they sacrificed their lives to better our country and to keep us safe. World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam veterans are forever in our memory, but time marches on. Viet Nam falls farther and farther back in history. We know that sounds pretty obvious, but that means we need to build up our more recent veterans who served in Iraq, Somalia, the Persian Gulf wars and Afghanistan and give them the same honor as our older vets.

What can we do to elevate our veterans as heroes? Instead of guessing or assuming the burdens they carry, the life they lived, the wisdom they gained, through their scars, we need to view that substance through their writing, their paintings, their drawings, their sculpting, their photographs, their art.

Sean Davis, an Army veteran, author of “The Wax Bullet War”, and humanities instructor at MHCC, (see his story on page 4) said in an eloquent way, “We deal with a lot of stuff.” He did a lot of his writing at night because he had tears running down his face. Veterans can share to others, but others cannot understand what they’re sharing with intimacy. We can certainly have sympathy, but for those who have not served, there just cannot be empathy.

This is why we do not have the right to judge from the outside. We must mentally consume what they have to share and embrace it for what it is. We also shouldn’t let our ignorance withhold us from welcoming and spending time with veterans and learning from them. The Advocate urges you this Veteran’s Day to not view veterans with pity; instead, learn from them.

Advocate Staff