Veterans Day 2019

Like pretty much everything else – for better or for worse – Veterans Day ain’t like it used to be.

For one thing, it used to be a day off. For pretty much everyone. Now it is a federal-state-local day off, but few businesses observe it. It may have been a holiday when my career began, but – like Columbus Day – it got swapped out over time for the day after Thanksgiving or Patriots Day. Both days I’d much rather have off.

Then again, I’m not a vet.

But back in the day, pretty much everyone (male edition) was a veteran. The fathers of my generation pretty much all served in World War II. Post-war, there was a draft, and pretty much everyone (male edition) was swept into some branch of the service or the other.

Now it’s almost a surprise to find out that someone has been in the military. Because most people have not.

Those who have served, we faux honor with the “thanks for your service” nods that I understand most veterans and members of the service think are a crock. At baseball games – at least at Fenway Park – there’s typically a shoutout to a couple of active service members, and everyone has to give them a standing o. To sit during this little display wouldn’t be worth the heckling you’d have to put up with from the sunshine patriots. (Most, I will note, don’t bother to sing along with the national anthem. Which I do. Just sayin’.) So I stand for the local heroes, but don’t put much energy into clapping.

It’s not that I begrudge the soldiers, sailors, and airmen/women their moment of glory, But it always feels so cheap and bogus. Better to vote to ensure that they get the benefits they’re entitled to. Better to vote to ensure that they’re not sent off to get blasted to smithereens by IEDs in some ill-thought-through, purposeless war to begin with.

I owe my existence to war. A good war, I suppose.

My father spent part of his war years stationed at Navy Pier in downtown Chicago, where he met my mother on a blind date.

I’m pretty sure my father would have laughed in the face of anyone who thanked him for his service.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, he signed on for the duration, which for him turned out to be four years in non-combat situations. (He was in peril on the seas a few times, on ships sailing through U-Boat prowled waters to get him to and from Trinidad, where he spent a couple of his Navy years.)

My mother, for her part, more or less owed her presence in Chicago to World War One.

My last year’s Veterans Day post was a shout-out to my grandfather Jake Wolf, who was more than happy when The War to End All Wars ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. He was in to win it, I suppose, but he was fighting on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his side lost. (And a couple of his brothers lost their lives.) Anyway, within a few years of the war’s end, he was on his way to America to make a new life for his family in Chicago.

I don’t imagine that Jake Wolf would have expected any dankes for his service, either.

So, thanks to Al Rogers and Jake Wolf, I’m here on Veterans Day 2019, blogging away.

A posthumous Happy Veterans Day to both of them, and a live, real-time Happy Veterans Day to those who are still among us.