SEPARATION DAY, EVERY VETERAN’S DAY

Separation day is the day you become a veteran.

You get your papers and hit the road.

My veteran road began in New Jersey, Fort Dix to be specific, which has a new role to play.

The Army road began in Fort Ord, which also has a new role.

From one September to another two years later, I was a newly minted U.S. Army Veteran.

Then what?

I’m a baby boomer with an identity problem.

I’ve never identified as a veteran, which is sort of sad because it’s a good bandwagon to jump on and I’ve got my ticket punched.

Whether you got sucked up in the draft and got out the second your time expired, enlisted, or finally cut the cord on a long and distinguished military career, separation day is Veteran’s Day.

Along with the traditional interpretations.

 

This Separation Day With Wife

My Dad got married as a Marine Corps sergeant.

His bride became a Marine Corps wife.

Their first home was half a quonset hut in California.

While they were married they never talked about their early days with their kids.

Their divorce a quarter century later opened things up a little.

My Mom was with her first husband when he woke up screaming from combat nightmares of being overrun by a human waves in Korea.

My Dad shared some of his experiences with his new wife.

The good thing is they both got to talk about their early days.

If they’d been able to do that together they may have stayed married?

Of course everyone was older the second time around.

Now I’m older.

Maybe you’re a spring chicken millennial? Maybe not.

Either way, this Veteran’s Day my wife and I decided I should select a curated list of historical war documentaries and movies.

Did we watch the first part of Full Metal Jacket? Noooo.

The end of Platoon? Noooo.

The beginning of Saving Private Ryan? Noooo.

We got down with ‘First Invasion: The War of 1812.’

I followed up with documentary footage of the steps taken to kick off WWI.

All of the historical death and destruction seemed so far away, and as awful as any footage from today’s war zones.

 

The Last Day Of Fort Dix

On my last day of Army time I drove up from Philadelphia where I’d been stationed on permanent temporary duty.

I got my papers in order at hospital headquarters, said good-bye to the captain who reminded me he could order me to get a haircut before he signed off. Lol?

That guy was a piece of work who hated his job.

I was ready to drive back to Philly when I hit a snag.

The last guy to sign my release, some file clerk, wasn’t in so I spent the night in the separation day barracks.

And, because the Army is so compassionate and caring, I was put in a room with another soldier on the way out with a hallway of empty rooms available.

My roomie was quite a talker, explaining how the Army cared about him so much they were sending him home to help his family store.

The more he talked the more he sounded like a Section 8.

He couldn’t stop talking about hopes and dreams and working to achieve them and how much the Army helped him.

Me: How long have you been in?

Him: Not quite six months.

 

After six months you were vested in benefits; before six months you got the boot.

He was a good kid, bonded with the Army, and would always have a story to tell.

It’s probably changed over the past fifty or so years.

 

 

While he sat on the lower bunk chatting away like Forrest Gump on a bus stop bench before anyone talked about a box of chocolates, I stretched out up top reviewing the past two years.

If there is ever a choice of which bunk, always take the top in case someone is a bed-wetter.

It happened in boot camp with people shocked to find themselves sharing a room with forty strangers when they had had their own room.

Luckily I grew up in a family and always had a roommate brother. (Hey boys)

I’d already spent a year in the dorm with college roommates, a summer at the mill and living with high school roommates, so I was seasoned and ready when I was put in a four-bed Army barracks room in boot camp with four guys already in there.

Me: (to Dale Pagel, the biggest guy) Where’s your stuff?

 

He pointed to a top bunk.

I walked over, put his stuff on the floor and my stuff on the bunk.

 

Me: You can fight one of these guys for a bunk. I’d start with him. (I pointed to Jeff Kavadis)

 

 

It all worked out and we all became friends, all sharing some kind of bond.

The four man room turned out to be the guys chosen as squad leaders, but we didn’t know.

They put the fifth guy in there to see how everyone would work together solving the bunk problem.

And that’s how I became the leader of the pack, the platoon guide, and sent to leadership training school.

 

Identify As A Veteran

I remember things. Not everything, but what I do remember can’t be too uncommon for veterans.

From the G.I. Bill clerk at UofO:

It’s 1976. What did you do to deserve this money. You weren’t in the war.

How many ways is there to say, “Fuck that guy.”

Like this? ‘Save your pathetic shit talk, REMF, and do your job like you did at your air conditioned Saigon desk.’

From an active duty officer on his day off:

“We like to say you’re not really a veteran unless you’ve been deployed.”

‘You commanded a team of mechanics on convoy trucks inside the perimeter. Did you get a medal?’

 

Identify as a veteran and keep it short.

Them: Are you a veteran?

You: Yes.

 

Take it from there if things look like they need to go anywhere. Just don’t go here:

 

“Yes, I’m a veteran. I used to lead LRRP teams into the jungle. The worst part was writing letters to the families of the fallen.”

 

One of the people who’d heard the story told the man’s adult kids they ought to be so proud of their dad’s service in Vietnam.

 

Kids: He never went to Vietnam.

 

PS: Happy Veteran’s Day, happy separation day. Do you wish you’d stayed in longer?

 

 

PSS: I believe veteran’s of a certain stripe offer a good defense against the avalanche of bullshit on social and traditional media that plays so often the smell either dies down, or we get used to it.

When it is literally the same shit, different day, keep finding ways to sort it out.

That’s your assignment, should you choose to take it.

If that’s too much, leave comments on blogs like boomerpdx instead. Let me know if you find one.