A Young Vet on Veteran's Day

The author sent this as part of an e-mail on Veterans' Day. It's a little late to be using it today, but I wanted to get his permission before sharing his history of the day and what it means to him.

By DAN BLACK

Please forgive the reversal of tradition; I thought that I [a veteran of the Iraq war] would reach out to you for Veterans’ Day instead of the other way around.

"Veterans Day" was once termed "Armistice Day" because Germany agreed to armistice (truce) in Rethondes, France. The first steps, the final armistice necessary, toward the Central Powers' surrender to the Triple Entente were officially taken. It was ninety years ago today, in the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (actually signed six hours earlier that morning) that the "Great War", the "war to end all wars", the "war to make the world safe for democracy", and so on and so forth, saw its curtains close.

The world thought it had seen the last of war -- that was what World War I was all about. I suppose the logic must have run something like this: the world's largest, wealthiest nation states, having savagely butchered 20 million of one another's teenage conscripts over convoluted political/economic disputes, and the private interests that conceived and sustained the affair <http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm >,
having grown weary of making money, had tired themselves of the fight.

Looking back, we know better. We remember that seven and a half months later, when the peace was settled and signed at Versailles, the seeds of World War II had been sown (Hitler forced France's surrender in the same train car). And we've lived seamless war ever since.

That is the history of this day that I'm reminded of every time I hear some ignorant media pundit preach to me about veterans, showing our support, pride, patriotism, and so on ad nauseam. I am amazed, and I wish to share this with you all, that although I believe the adage "the more things change, the more they stay the same," and surely have sufficient evidence, I dare allow myself to dream, nonetheless.

And of course, it continues. National Football League star, Pat Tillman, enlisted and went Special Ops, after 9/11. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and other PR minded NeoCons wanted to use Pat Tillman's All American narrative to "sell" the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)

After deploying to Afghanistan, Tillman became an outspoken opponent of the entire U.S. policy in the GWOT. The importance of silencing an American Hero, ready to expose the game is what Mary Tillman, Pat Tillman's Mom, writes about in her book, Boots on the Ground by Dusk, the story of the final hours of Pat Tillman's life. The book shows the unanswered contradictions of DoD coverups, and what REALLY happened on the Ground.

Iraq Veteran Against the War (IVAW) Geoff Millard was the MC of Mary Tillman's book reading and Q & A, on the Congressional Hearings, the Desert Camo Wall of Silence and LIES that enshrouded the Capital Hill hearings on Pat Tillman's assassination.

Read Mary’s book. I recommend it.

Dan Black, who served in Iraq with the Marine Corps, is completing his last semester for a bachelor’s degree from Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY. He attended high school with our son, Augie Schroeder in Maplewood, NJ.