Veterans Day

I've wanted K to watch Band of Brothers with me for a long time, but I knew it hasn't been appropriate until now. She is just about 13, and can understand. She can take it in as more than entertainment. The world is becoming 3-D to her now. Technicolor.

There are so many things I think about telling K. About our world, and rhetoric and bias and violence. But I want her to just experience some things. This much-lauded mini series is so well done, especially viewed with the interviews from the actual soldiers of E-company, that it offers context and complexity and hope and devastation without much additional commentary required from me.

But still there are so many things to say. As with all my 'teaching moments', I don't want K to write me off as a right-wing nut job. As with all my thoughts on current events and civics and politics, I want her to see there are separate philosophies based on well-thought-out arguments. But there is also, sometimes, right and wrong.

I watch reruns of Band of Brothers and think, 'Tell K war is TERRIBLE. There is nothing glamorous or exciting about this. Yes, it is like watching a car accident - compelling. But look beyond that. Look at the sheer horror.' Everything wrong with our nature allows this to happen again and again.

Some men were violent for the thrill of it. Some snapped and did horrific things because they could no longer help themselves. Some women gave themselves away in the name of safety. And some people looked away from the deaths of innocents in hopes that their lives could go on unaffected, without shame. This is what happens in war. But it also happens every day.

The most patriotic man I ever knew, my father, was in World War II, in the Pacific. I know very little about what he did there because he just didn't talk about it. In a way, he couldn't talk about it. How could he put into words all he saw? I interviewed him for a college project, and he talked openly about most of his life, but his words describing his time overseas were stilted. His eyes were distant. When he talked about throwing his duffel bag overboard on the ship ride home, I could see his open wound scabbing over. And I could see his soul forever damaged.

Yes, war is terrible, K, but look at it. It is as complex as all of humanity. It is hard and technicolor, and sometimes it is necessary. There are no easy answers, no matter what rhetoric is served up daily from all sides of the fence.

But one thing is easy. What of the people who fight without being asked, who sacrifice when they could be sitting at a laptop ruminating about human nature, who put themselves in harms way day after day, year after year, because they feel it is simply the right thing to do? Well, it is okay to be proud of them. The are brave and honorable and worthy of our utmost gratitude. Some are soldiers and some are veterans, and today - Veteran's Day - it is simply right to honor them.