PAX Centurion - Summer 2014

Page 32 • PAX CENTURION • Summer 2014 617-989-BPPA (2772) Veteran’s Corner: Patrick M. Rose Memorial Day is still a day to remember M emorial Day has come and gone. With Memorial Day weekend comes the unofficial start of summer for many. Cookouts, opening vacation homes or a quick getaway, you know, like that sick day you use so you can sneak an extra day at the Cape, etc. I will say for most it is well-deserved, after all, you get up day in and day out strapping it on and showing up to get it done! We do indeed deserve a little me time, but let’s not forget, we don’t need a “holiday for me” time, skip a detail or two during the week and get the same result. Memorial Day for some of us though, is still a day to remember, to remember those that gave it all to defend this Nation. A day to plant flags and clean up neglected cemetery plots of our Nation’s Heroes. The Heroes that are not known to many, the names that are not recognizable. They are the grave sites of the Smith’s & Jones’s, the O’Leary’s or Polumbo’s and Rosenfield’s.You get the idea, these are not theAudie Murphy’s of the world, just the everyday Janes and Joes that gave it all to defend what we have. These men and woman entered the Armed Forces never thinking for a moment that they would do anything heroic, little did they realize by raising their right hand and taking the oath, that in of itself was heroic. So what I guess I’m trying to express here is please take time out to reflect and remember what these holidays are truly about. As I walk around I see more and more of the Statues and Monuments built to show respect to and for our Veterans falling to disrepair, I get sickened when I see on the news that some misguided idiots toppledVeterans’ tombstones. I sometimes wonder, does anyone really care?You don’t have to be a MilitaryVeteran to show respect for the service provided. If you see some trash building up around a Memo- rial, pick it up. If you have a little time around Memorial Day swing by your local VFW or American Legion Post, ask if they could use some help planting flags at the gravesites of Veterans, (those rows and rows of flags don’t grow on their own, they are actually placed by human hands volunteering their time). Take your kids for walk though any park on a weekend and lead by example with a bucket, some soapy water and a sponge to clean up some of the Monuments that have fallen to disrepair, or even start up a group through social media to raise funds and repair our Monuments and tributes to our Veterans from times of old. Don’t wait for the other guy, because quite frankly the other guys are dying off. If we don’t step up to the plate and take an active role in taking care of our Heritage, there will be nothing left for future generations to enjoy or reflect upon and our children and grandchildren deserve better. Don’t rely on the government, they can’t and won’t get it done, rely on each other and you know it will be done! There has been a lot of talk of late about supporting our Veterans. What we need, who we are, etc., about joblessness, stress, homelessness etc. Please allow me to share with you the thoughts of one of the great- est military minds that ever walked this planet. The following is a short speech given by General David Petraeus recently. Please don’t dismiss the brilliance of this General Officer based on an extra-marital indiscre- tion, he is and probably will be remembered as one of the most learned, intelligent military leaders of our generation. I believe that history will prove me correct. At a recent graduation, he passed along the following thoughts and observations: “I remember the day I found out I got intoWest Point. My mom actually showed up in the hallway of my high school and waited for me to get out of class. She was bawling her eyes out and apologizing that she had opened up my admission letter. She wasn’t crying because it had been her dream for me to go there. She was crying because she knew how hard I’d worked to get in, how much I wanted to attend, and how much I wanted to be an infantry officer. I was going to get that opportunity. That same day two of my teachers took me aside and essentially told me the follow- ing, “David, you’re a smart guy.You don’t have to join the military.You should go to college, instead.” I could easily write a theme defending West Point and the military as I did that day, explaining that USMA is an elite institution, that separate from that it is actually statistically much harder to enlist in the military than it is to get admitted to college, that serving the nation is a challenge that all able-bodied men should at least consider for a host of reasons, but I won’t.What I will say is that when a 16-year-old kid is being told that attendingWest Point is going to be bad for his future then there is a dangerous disconnect inAmerica, and entirely too manyAmericans have no idea what kind of burdens our military is bearing. InWorldWar II, 11.2% of the nation served in four (4) years. During the Vietnam era, 4.3% served in twelve (12) years. Since 2001, only 0.45% of our population has served in the Global War on Terror. These are unbelievable statistics. Over time, fewer and fewer people have shouldered more and more of the burden and it is only getting worse. Our troops were sent to war in Iraq by a Congress consisting of 10% veterans with only one person having a child in the military. Taxes did not increase to pay for the war. War bonds were not sold. Gas was not regulated. In fact, the average citizen was asked to sacrifice nothing, and has sacrificed nothing unless they have chosen to out of the goodness of their hearts. The only people who have sacrificed are the veterans and their fami- lies. The volunteers. The people who swore an oath to defend this na- tion.You stand there, deployment after deployment and fight on.You’ve lost relationships, spent years of your lives in extreme conditions, years apart from kids you’ll never get back, and beaten your body in a way that even professional athletes don’t understand. Then you come home to a nation that doesn’t understand. They don’t understand suffering. They don’t understand sacrifice. They don’t un- derstand why we fight for them. They don’t understand that bad people exist. They look at you like you’re a machine – like something is wrong with you.You are the misguided one – not them. When you get out, you sit in the college classrooms with political science teachers that discount your opinions on Iraq andAfghanistan because YOUWERE THERE and can’t understand the macro issues they gathered from books, because of your bias.You watch TV shows where every vet has PTSD and the violent strain at that.Your Congress is debating your benefits, your retirement, and your pay, while they ask you to do more. But the amazing thing about you is that you all know this.You know your country will never pay back what you’ve given up.You know that the populace at large will never truly understand or appreciate what you have done for them. Hell, you know that in some circles, you will be thought as less than normal for having worn the uni- form. But you do it anyway.You do what the greatest men and women of this country have done since 1775. YOU SERVED. Just that decision alone makes you part of an elite group. “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” – Winston Churchill. Thank you to the 11.2% and 4.3% who have served and thanks to the 0.45% who continue to serve our Nation.” This speech kind of says it all. Thank you General Petraeus. To my fellowVeterans, enjoy the summer, enjoy your families, enjoy being home, but let us not forget.