With Veterans Day approaching I wanted to share my thoughts on this saying, “Thank you for your service.” What is meant when this greeting is offered? Here’s what it means to me when I hear it offered to me:
You mean thanks for the sacrifice of being stationed in northern Virginia for my entire career?
While I got paid for my "dependent" husband who always earned money and eventually out-earned me?
You mean for those gruelling days where I worked more than four hours?
You mean for the days at a time when I wasn't called in to work at all?
You mean for the sacrifice of traveling to the Hollywood Bowl to play with the LA Phil for the 4th of July or to Salt Lake City to play for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics?
You mean for almost never having to pay for health care?
If you mean for playing to honor soldiers being interred in Arlington National Cemetery, I will remind you, some people liked to entertain themselves by farting on those funerals.
The army band is one of the best and most stable employers of musicians in the country, so there is no sacrifice of a better paying job in the private sector so I don’t feel comfortable accepting this thanks. I generally accept it as a proxy for those who genuinely sacrifice to serve.
I have served with others though who aren’t so squeamish about accepting accolades for their selfless service, soldiers who are never shy about taking what is offered to mitigate their sacrifice. A case in point: after 9-11-01, the army band was assigned to help the Secret Service make credentials for those who needed access to the Pentagon crash site. There were of course, firefighters and investigators and recovery personnel working around the clock and to mitigate this hardship, there was a mobile Exchange set up that offered free supplies for those working at the site. While we of the army band were free to go home after our 9 hour shifts, there were a number of army band members who took advantage of the Exchange to stock up on batteries and socks for themselves. One of these band members also took advantage of a lull in the day to secretly photograph me resting in my chair and used the credentialing machine to make a badge that said “One Lazy Bitch.” I did not feel that those supplies were for me or that I should use the Secret Service computers to create a gag badge, but some clearly felt entitled to these things.
I feel we are cheapening Veterans Day and the status of a veteran when we do these things, when we so easily accept the logic that seems to go something like this: “All veterans are heroes, I’m a veteran, therefor I’m a hero.” To this logic, I answer that even if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck it may not be a duck. It may be a wolf in duck’s clothing or a sheep or some guy hiding in a duck blind trying to call out the real ducks so that he can shoot them.
I know a lot of people won’t like this, but I’m going to say it anyway: Veterans Day was not created for the army band. We already get so many more benefits than “ordinary” veterans by being in a special band such as a permanent duty assignment, advanced rank and in-house promotions. Can we please not appear so thirsty as to suck up all the attention on Veteran’s Day and just think about what it means to be a veteran for us versus those we helped put in the ground? That ceremony was our service and it is important, but let’s not equate it to that of those no longer with us.
And so I have a request this Veteran’s Day and that is to ask you to think about what you are saying and what is being said to you and what it really means. If you say “thank you for your service” to me, I’m going to graciously accept it but I’m accepting on behalf of those who serve but don’t have a day designated to them, who don’t get free health care, who don’t get their student loans repaid, who don’t get special home loans, who don’t enjoy discounts at Home Depot and who don’t get special status boarding airplanes. I’d like to recognize true volunteers who put their lives on the line to help others, those working for aid organizations like Doctors Without Borders, for journalists who find their lives increasingly at risk when they do their best work shining light in areas that the powerful would rather keep in the dark.
I’d also like to pass on a very special “Thank you for your service” to the whistleblowers whose lives are upended, their characters assassinated and who receive precious little thanks for service that at least aspires to benefit the downtrodden and short-changed and to stop the cheaters from cheating all of us. I’ve lived a comparatively short amount of my life as a whistleblower, enough to have a deeper understanding of the trauma than most and enough to know how lucky I am to have had an escape route. The fact of the matter is that most whistleblowers probably aren’t able to make a difference as they and their stories are effectively buried. They bear the cost and see no benefit. They are ghosts who will forever be unknown to histories. This may be my case, but I haven’t given up on the army band yet. I’m hopeful they will change.
To sum up, this Veterans Day, let’s take a hard look at our honorees and think critically about who and what we are honoring and who and what we are not. Service to country so often is not packed within a uniform. Let’s recognize that and be thankful for those who keep fighting the good fight whoever they are.
