A few days ago I got back from England where Taylor, her mother and I went on ‘Holiday’, as they say over there. This past weekend was the start of their Remembrance Day which is on the 11th day of the 11th month every year for all of their veterans throughout the years. We saw people wearing poppies everywhere we looked. There was even a ceremony at the Tower of London where they laid 888,246 hand-made poppies. It was impossible to NOT be a part of this. Taylor and I were even wearing them. You almost felt out of place if you weren’t wearing them. I felt proud to be a veteran over there. Coming back to the US I have felt bittersweet.
Why bittersweet?
Because I wish I felt the same way here in the US as I did over there. I’ve never had a day off of work for Veterans Day, nor the Marine Corp Birthday. I have barely gotten any recognition for my service. Like every service member that I personally know, we loved every bit of our service, and still to this day I am a very proud Marine. We thought we were doing something special. We thought we were making a difference in the world. I might have long hair, earrings and guy liner, play guitar and sing in a Rock band, but every aspect of who I am, of my time in service and out, comes through in my lyrics. I am a firm believer that you can’t speak of anything unless you’ve walked in another’s shoes. Walk the Walk, as they say. I think I’ve walked enough wearing different shoes throughout my short time on this planet to say this… not too many people here give a #%@. By no means am I saying that nobody gives a#%@, but a good amount of our country lives in a different reality of consumerism. An unconscious consumerism without any regard to consequences. Living in their own little reality while our Government keeps them and then highjacks it from under their noses.They have been highjacked through the Patriot Act, TSA, our uselessly corrupt politicians and the media. They keep you pre-occupied on Facebook, Television, Walmart, etc., to where your mind is so filled with what you can get right now that you’ve lost perspective on the future. Today, in America, Veterans Day is another Facebook event that everybody will forget about until next year. I’ll be the first to say that we Veterans aren’t asking for handouts. We’re not asking to be treated more special than anybody else. But for one day we would like everybody in our country to truly understand what it means to be a Veteran. It means sacrifice. The only sacrifice I see today is our rights as citizens.
America is losing it. The country I served was already on a downward spiral and got worse from the first Gulf War. I thought my time in service would be making a difference, upholding the constitution that so many before me died for because they believed it to be the best idea yet. I too felt that. But coming back to America, getting off a plane and being shuttled like cattle through TSA, with them looking ever more suspicious at all of us really made me question what it was all about? Where did we go wrong? How is it with all of the information in our databases they could not see in my passport that I am a Marine? I’m not asking for special privileges. I’m not asking to get shuttled to the front of the line. Just a ‘Thank You’ for my service instead of the evil eye seeing if I was a terrorist. I watched a young girl jump in front of line in front of an old Veteran in a wheelchair with no acknowledgement at all, as if he didn’t exist.
I’m not saying Europe is better, and to be honest I don’t know the politics in each of their countries, but the feeling… the feeling is different. It was a feeling that I haven’t felt since I was a child. I didn’t feel like a prisoner. I didn’t feel like I was going to lose everything if I didn’t make enough money. I could talk to random people on the street or in a bar without feeling a threat. People were ‘living’ over there. Really living. We saw shops where they closed at 2:30pm and would reopen at 4:30pm for their own downtime, their lunchtime. Shops didn’t open until noon on Sunday. That’s where I say that America is losing it.
Today… the only thing I ask of each of you is this… What have you sacrificed and what are you willing to do today to change the world for tomorrow?
Peace,
David
