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Published on 11/10/1999 All articles from this issue

What's a veteran? Not easy to answer but worth answering

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By Dave Marin

Recently, my wife and I were shopping for an unconventional greeting card and were surprised at the variety of choices proffered. There were cards from dogs, cats and other pets, plus titles like golf, over the hill and 100th birthday.

Having just seen the film, "Saving Private Ryan," I suddenly felt impelled to ask, "How come no cards for veterans?" My wife replied, "Why would you send a card to a veteran?" And that was a question I wanted to ponder.

Actually, just what is a veteran? Is he that old gray-head stumbling along in the Fourth of July parade, sporting his American Legion cap? Or is he the one who wears his ribbons and medals on what is left of his uniform or the flight jacket that's as wrinkled as his skin? Perhaps, he is the kindly looking gentleman in the corner bed of the spinal-cord injury center of the local Veteran's Hospital, where he has spent the "best" years of his life, or your shy, withdrawn neighbor who even seems totally distracted at times. You probably won't know until he dies that he landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Then there's that dependable volunteer who shows up at your church rummage sale each year - to do twice the work of others - despite the artificial arm replacement for the one he left on a Korean mountainside. And the dopehead, the kid who never grew up, who still relies on methodone, unable to conquer the habit he picked up on the streets of Saigon during the two years he spent in the Vietnamese jungle. Not to mention the Gulf War G.I. who continues to bellyache to the medical authorities about the strange syndrome he picked up in the Iraqi desert.

Just where did these veterans come from? How did they start out? In "Citizen Soldier," his epic work on the European Theater in World War II, author Stephen Ambrose describes them as "overwhelmingly high school or college students ... drafted or enlisted voluntarily," adding later, "the quarter-back on the championship high school football team, the president of his class. The chess champion. The lead in the class play. The solo in the spring concert. The wizard in the chemistry class."

However, in larger part, they were really the hoi polloi of their day. And now we have the survivors who don't seek celebration or notoriety, unless it serves to make the public more aware of those who did die and what they died for.

Every veteran, whether he served on the battlefront or the homefront, asks himself the same question: "Why me? Why did I survive, when better men didn't?" It's a question that haunts to the very heart and probably one only God can answer.

So what kind of cards could you send veterans tomorrow? Return directly to the conventional display and select any that simply say, "Thank You."

They will understand.

Los Altos resident Dave Marin, a retired Navy captain, is a veteran of World War II, the Korean and Cold wars.