Seaman Mike Browne - 12/62 -- recording the  Bob Hope show  -- USS Kitty Hawk, Subic Bay, Philippines

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 the guns of the World War One fell silent.  The following year Woodrow Wilson designated the day as Armistice Day. In 1954 President Eisenhower changed the name to Veterans Day, a day of celebration when a lot of aging vets squeeze themselves into their old uniforms, or maybe just put on an American Legion or VFW hat, and march in a parade.

Last year this old vet sat in a wheelchair on a San Diego curb and watched the parade rather than wheel in it, accompanied by two beautiful women, the Lady Karen Simons and Lady Sandy Burgess, the latter being a cousin from Alaska. Lady Sandy and her husband, Keith, were in town to visit their Marine son. Lady Karen had bought me a really fancy cap with Navy insignia. Later Lady Sandy sent me a t-shirt emblazoned with the name of a ship I'd served aboard.

During the parade I removed my cap when a color guard bearing the flag passed by.  I'm not all that patriotic about the flag, but I did get caught up in the martial music, the presence of all those impossibly young sailors and Marines probably bound for harm's way, and an ingrained sense of flag protocol acquired at an early age in a military academy and reinforced in the Navy. If you're a civilian wearing a hat, you take off your lid when the flag passes by -- or should.   For me, the gesture was not a tribute to a decorated cloth, but a showing of respect for American kids being shot at in foreign wars.

No parade for this old bat this year, but I did snag a free lunch. See, San Diego is a military town and some restaurants lose a bundle of money offering free lunches to active duty, retired, and former military people like me who never pass up a free meal. Sooo, I put on the Navy cap Lady Karen gave me last year and invited her to accompany me on my free lunch mission.

While we were seated in the waiting area of a restaurant crowded with service people and former service people along with their families and guests, a well buffed 20-something fella with buzzed hair, accompanied by two parent looking people, came up to me, extended his hand and said, “Thank you for your service.” He was gone before I could thank him for his. I guessed he was a Marine from nearby Camp Pendleton despite not being in uniform. The haircut was a giveaway.

Like many of us, I've been watching the behavior the president-elect with mixed feelings, none of them good. He talks so cavalierly about invading Iraq on the false premise that Iraqi oil is America's oil. Now this man never spent one day in the armed forces, and he's perfectly willing to send that 20-something Marine who courteously greeted me in the restaurant, along with thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people in uniform into combat so he can Make America Great Again.

Excuse me, Mr. President-elect, but America is already great – and you sure as hell won't make it any greater unless you learn to play well with others on the international playground.

Me, I do not want to see photos of an airplane hangar filled with flag draped coffins flown in from the Middle East or anywhere else. I hope the young fella I presumed to be a Marine will one day be an old man who marches in Veterans Day parades wearing a silly hat.

-oOo-

Comments, anyone?

This response is full of Thank Yous:
Thank you for your service.

Thank you for thanking others for theirs.

Thank you for sharing your sentiments about the president-elect.

Thank you for your heart.

Hubba Hubba, sailor!

– Ellen

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Thank you for your service, Mike  You are as handsome now as you were then.  Peace and love to you, my friend. – Peggy Hill

Oh stop. – MB

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Re Trump never serving; Didn't you know? Donald Trump attended military school where he learned everything he needs to know about the U.S. military and how it should operate. (Don't you feel secure knowing this failed businessman is in charge of the country?) Three days later and I still have a knot in my stomach, waiting for the other shoe to fall. I don't want to have to listen to him for another four years. I miss George W. Bush already!

 – Brat

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I love your snide remarks about Trump.  My serious side has emerged after my initial denial and shock and disgust. I wrote this little paragraph today:

Trump's appointment is a crisis that may serve to mobilize us to address the very real problems and big questions this society faces.  We have been missing serious Democratic party discourse about the effects of globalization on manufacturing sector in the US. Most people can only blame single causes, when in fact we need to think systematically. Are protective tariffs going to be enough?  Should there be a relocation program for those in dwindling cities? Or a [Civilian Conservation Corps] for the environment?   How does a nation gracefully decline? Does the UK's end of empire offer any insights?  Decades ago social theorists speculated about a leisure society and asked what meaningful activities might take the place of work.  Do we need a citizenship wage? Can we call upon the human potential movement to help people enjoy and share their inner resources?

-- Galen

Galen is right. We liberals have gotten politically and socially complacent and maybe just a little too smug. That made us a big fat target for the disaffected. – MB
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A friend who worked for Homeland Security said, “I have a high security clearance and if I had done what [Clinton did with the classified e-mails] I would be spending the rest of my life in federal prison “

I am glad to see the GOP blown apart and the DNC likewise. Perhaps we can get someone in four years we can proudly support.  As for Donald, I hope he will fulfill his promises. I am willing to give him a chance. 

-- Charlotte
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Thanks. This was most welcome today. – Sum

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I too hope that young man will march in a parade one day.  We are opening a housing project for vets.  I think any president should visit there and hear the residents stories before considering war.  The president would also learn a thing or two about what vets need when they return home.  – Tammy

Thank you and your community for what I gather is a project for homeless or low income vets. -- MB

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Enjoyable read, as always! Glad you got your free lunch. Re the election.... still in shock. – Lynda
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First, I am foursquare against war - and just as surely know American humans will engage in it with noble and patriotic reason, and I honor them every Veteran's Day and any day I see an old vet with a hat on proudly depicting his military service, or a young man from my local Army base sporting his camo and name tag filling up his rig down the street.  I cannot, and will not, take anything from the courageous act of walking into danger in defense of a way of life I freely can live. Yeah, you can cue the anthem.  I love my country and I am safer because of the soldiers who are much more brave than I.

As for Trump, I am pretty sure one of the main reasons he was elected is that so many are so sick of politicians and their chronic inaction that they would elect a pompous ass instead.  I go with this:  In four years, maybe we WILL elect someone we can be proud of.  Time will tell,

Thanks for the piece, and thanks to you Mike, and to my brother, and every person who ever served, or still serves. – Zoey