Something to ponder on D-Day Rememberance Weekend, 2009

by Tom Barnes

Here are some quotations about Veterans. It might be instructive to ponder them on this weekend commemorating the D-Day Landings in Europe on 6 June 1944.

"Within the soul of each Vietnam veteran there is probably something that says "Bad war, good soldier." Only now are Americans beginning to separate the war from the warrior." Max Cleland

"The only war is the war you fought in. Every veteran knows that." Allan Keller

"The responsible choice would be to honor those who have worn our nation’s uniform, but the administration made a different choice. They’re raising veterans’ health care fees by $250 a year while cutting taxes for millionaires." Senator John Kerry

"John Kerry was a thorn in our flesh. He was very articulate, a credible leader of the opposition. He forced us to create a counterfoil. We found a vet named John O’Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had O’Neill meet the President, and we did everything we could do to boost his group"

Charles Colson

"Heroism is latent in every human soul – However humble or unknown, they (the veterans) have renounced what are accounted pleasures and cheerfully undertaken all the self-denials – privations, toils, dangers, sufferings, sicknesses, mutilations, life-" Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

"America’s veterans deserve the very best health care because they’ve earned it." Jim Ramstad

"As a former veteran, I understand the needs of veterans, and have been clear – we will work together, stand together with the Administration, but we will also question their policies when they shortchange veterans and military retirees." Solomon Ortiz

"But this Veterans Day, I believe we should do more than sing the praises of the bravery and patriotism that our veterans have embodied in the past. We should take this opportunity to re-evaluate how we are treating our veterans in the present." Nick Lampson

"However, as our brave men and women continue to return from the battlefields of the War on Terror, Congress must respond by enacting policies that meet the evolving needs of the veterans community". Randy Neugebauer

"I deliberately did not read anything about the Viet Nam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was." Maya Lin (architect of the Viet Nam memorial in Washington D.C.)

"It was a requirement by the veterans to list the 57,000 names. We’re reaching a time that we’ll acknowledge the individual in a war on a national level."
Maya Lin

"The object of my relationship with Vietnam has been to heal the wounds that exist, particularly among our veterans, and to move forward with a positive relationship,… Apparently some in the Vietnamese government don’t want to do that and that’s their decision." Ho Chi Minh (surprised? Some things never change, no matter what country is dealing with its veterans.)

"There’s an air of mystery around the Masons, but the reality is that they’re mostly a bunch of veterans getting drunk in a lodge that they’ve built to look like a temple. It’s just a bunch of guys trying to get away from their wives." Jimmy Kimmel

"We pretended there was no problem with Agent Orange after Vietnam and later the Pentagon recanted, after untold suffering by veterans." Jim McDermott

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

And so it goes. Just as we saw relative to the concept of patriotism in a previous article, the entire idea surrounding the word "veteran" is viewed differently by different people. Just food for thought.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)