Writing about Veterans
“Thank you for your service.”
As you’ve probably realized from the plethora of social media posts, the advertisements for businesses, and the scripted statements from politicians and figures in the public eye, today is a special day.
It’s Veteran’s Day.
I am not a veteran (at least not yet), I’m still active duty in the military, but I wanted to make a special blog post to talk about writing and about veterans in particular. Why? Because #veteransday2019 and #veteran are trending on Twitter. That seems like a simple, obvious thing, but it isn’t. Today, is the day that the veteran demographic gets dusted off of the shelf, has the dust blown off, and is presented to the American people. It sometimes feels trite and routine and in most years I don’t say anything. I’ve never felt equipped to say anything beyond the casual conversation between myself and fellow military members. This year is different. This year I have a platform and I’m not going to let another year go by where I don’t at least try to make a difference in the way that the public perceives our volunteer warriors.
“I will never quit...My Nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates...I am never out of the fight.” -Philosophy of the U.S. Navy SEALs
The American military has captured the imagination of the public with dramatized movies like Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, Lone Survivor, and more. The Special Operations personnel are the closest thing that we have to real-life superheroes. They have the ability to infiltrate secure, impossible-sounding locations without being detected, save prisoners or hostages without suffering a misplaced bullet or a civilian casualty, and defeat the bad guys with speed and intensity. To us, it seems mystical, almost supernatural. We look at our mundane lives, living our routines the best way that we can and we wonder what it must be like to be the very tip in the spear. How is it otherwise normal, human men—made from the same flesh and bones as the rest of us—can take out an entire terrorist compound like it’s all in a day’s work. It doesn’t help that the dramatization of their work and the artistic liberty that creators take with the real stories means that the average person is wildly uninformed about the daily life of the average military member. It elevates these men to a place of honor and prestige, no less heroic and no less dramatic than the tales of Greek demi-gods. This has real detrimental effects on society as a whole and how veterans are perceived and I’ll explain why.
There’s something to be said about the fact that the American public doesn’t really know how to treat their warriors. In the past, they labeled the men—often from immigrant and poor backgrounds—as “baby killers” and spit on them or threw rocks when they returned from Vietnam. The irony is that the United States sent men to fight across the world for a democracy that they didn’t get to experience in their own country. They returned to be spat upon by anti-war protestors and draft dodgers. It was no wonder that Vietnam veterans had a difficult time reintegrating into society. They were set apart, they were loathed. They felt like they had fought for a country that didn’t even want them to be there. I’ve heard a phrase bandied about by Vietnam veterans to my brethren in the armed forces today. I’m paraphrasing but it’s always something along the lines of:
“You folks have it easy, today. When you get home, they tell you ‘thank you for your service,’ when I came home, they protested me.”
They’re not wrong. Some would argue that the United States is more supportive of its warriors than ever before. That’s partly true. It seems that every political cycle, there is a politician on both sides of the aisle criticizing the Veteran’s Affairs Department and their handling of Veteran Suicide. It’s a real problem. There is more reported PTSD and suicidal idealizations today than there ever was in Vietnam. Some would say that they were a harder breed of men but it’s deeper than that.
In an interesting book titled Tribe, the author, Sebastian Junger, dives into this subject and makes some startling revelations (at least startling to me):
High modern soldier PTSD rates are in part due to the stark transition modern soldiers make from a group characterized by total belonging, shared resources and experience and a shared goal of serving the collective good, to the total opposite in modern society.
The U.S. military has the highest reported PTSD rate in its history (21-29%) -- twice as high as the rate of British soldiers who were in combat with US soldiers, and significantly higher than groups like the Israel Defense Forces with PTSD rates as low as 1%.
I learned that we don’t have a mechanism in the United States for returning veterans to the population at large. They become revered or denigrated depending upon the public opinion of their time. Most people forget that yes, while they’re veterans, they’re also fathers and husbands. They’re school teachers, mechanics, business professionals, and lawyers. Perhaps even more sadly, they’re also the homeless in the street, they’re the disabled and maimed, they’re the anxious and depressed men and women that can’t find the energy to go to work that day. When they come back, they feel like their entire identity was wrapped up in being part of the military. It’s no wonder that when they leave, the feel bereft as if something were missing.
“Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.” -Sebastian junger, TRIBE: on homecoming and belonging
It seems almost common sense that it would then be difficult for veterans to acclimate back into a society that is so far removed from everything. They don’t know how their wars are fought, they don’t know how their food is made, they don’t know where their clothes come from or in what country their car was manufactured in. As the same time trade jobs that don’t require a college degree but are essential to progress and maintenance of a community are looked down upon as something base and useless. Yet, these are the same industries that can’t hire people fast enough and often easily make a higher income than the liberal arts graduate with $35,000 in debt (That’s the average, that means half of the students are higher than that).
It just so happens that these are the exact jobs that veterans are suited for. Either because the military has instilled in them a desire to work with their hands or because they were provided some sort of training that made the transition easier (diesel mechanics, A&P mechanics, electricians, welders, etc.). These men and women leave a life where they feel valued and important to jobs that are devaluated and lack any sense of community or fulfillment.
Every now and then—usually on Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day—they’re taken off the dusty shelf again and told “Thank you for Service” and they’ll perhaps get a free meal at the local Denny’s. Later that night, at the very least, 22 of them will find themselves on the wrong end of a bottle, a handful of pills, or the barrel of a gun. They’ll leave behind 22 person-sized holes their network of family, friends, and associated. They’re friends will say “‘til Valhalla” and get an “IGY6” tattooed on their forearms. Every year after that, they’ll take a toast for their friend and they’ll think about the deployments they went on and the memories they shared. Time will go on and eventually they’ll be forgotten. Relegated to a name engraved on the little black metal memorial bracelets that you’ll find most military members wearing.
So, how do we as a society fix it? Sebastian Junger has a suggestion:
“We need to focus on shared humanity, listening and uniting around commonalities instead of focusing on differences.” -Tribe, on home and belonging
Dear reader, I don’t tell you that to shame you.
I just want to remind you that veterans are no different than anyone else. They volunteered for a life-altering occupation. Most of them didn’t go because they wanted to serve their country—that usually comes later (It’s hard to have such high ideals when you’re seventeen or eighteen and you’re fresh out of high school with an indeterminable desire to do something more with your life).
No, the patriotism they feel comes somewhat later.
For the generation slightly before me, It came when they witnessed the falling of the twin towers. I was just a child when it happened, too young to understand the context of the attack. For my generation, it was something else. We had always been at war for as long as we could remember. For me, it was almost expected that I would join the military. I could feel its inevitability long before I stood upon the yellow footprints. It wasn’t until I hit the fleet and I met men and women from all different backgrounds, with different political beliefs, faiths, and dreams that I became a patriot.
The military is just a sample of the American people at large. I was in a place where it didn’t matter what you looked like, what genitalia is between your legs, or what god you believed in. As long as you were willing to work and succeed, the military would provide something back. Maybe it wasn’t the best, maybe it wasn’t exactly what you were asking for, but it was going to try. The leaders above you were going to take care of you the best that they could. That was when I recognized an important fact.
I recognized that the military was just a small piece of America. I’m still waiting for American to realize that we’re just a small piece of them.
Now that I’ve become a writer, it has changed how I feel about the military. Not about the men and women who serve themselves, but the perception that media and society portrays of them. There’s a dark tendency to write military characters and veterans as caricatures of themselves. We’ve all read about the Navy SEAL-Ranger-Spaceship door gunner-Sniper from NASA that can kill the bad guys by flexing their perfectly chiseled and black belt-trained chests. The reverse is present too. We watch TV shows about Veterans so damaged by the war and the conflict they’ve experienced that they become irredeemable villains or off-putting antiheroes (Looking at you Punisher). I know that veterans are neither of those things. They’re just people. They aren’t some monolithic category that can be placed neatly on a shelf. They’re individuals with unique wants and needs.
As a result, the military community can be a difficult one to write for. God forbid you forget that the bullet of a sniper round hits the target before the sound does (A fact that I learned in my new story). Also, the military community can be a harsh critic when a writer approaches any topic that even comes slightly within their purview. Many writers will hear the criticism,
“I wish you would’ve talked to someone in the military before you published this.”
I agree. Just like an author would do research on everything else they’re writing about (medieval siege warfare, anyone?), they should also do research on veterans and the military before they try their to write their stories. Perhaps in the process, the veteran will feel like they’re part of society again. As for the writer, you will undoubtedly have a better product. If we can collect around our commonalities and our shared humanity, maybe as a society we’ll be better able to accept our veterans in a way more meaningful than
“Thank you for your service.”
-DWB