VETERAN SKILLS ON VETERANS DAY

Veteran skills I like to explain to my wife:

We hear everything, but we don’t respond to every little thing.

Why?

We’re saving up to respond to the big things better.

Or, most likely we might be a little deaf and this is an excuse.

What did she say?

The wife of a veteran knows all about veteran skills.

They know we can all make a bed so tight a quarter bounces off the bedspread.

Unless it’s a thick cozy comforter, then that quarter sinks in and disappears.

If that’s the case, why bother making it at all? Just pull up the sheets, stack the pillows, and roll out the feather bed.

Wife says make the bed because: “If you don’t it comes untucked and pulls up and no one can sleep with their feet tangled in loose sheets.”

Should I tell her my single man habit on laundry day? I’d dump it all on my bed and crawl underneath for a nap.

That comes from growing up with three other kids and a mom who had a laundry habit. Lucky for us because there was always a ton of laundry with sports and looking 70’s cool.

Turtleneck, or dickey; blue jeans or brown corduroy? Oh, the choices.

Veterans Day Fashion 1974

The future was out there waiting for your baby boomer boy and I was so excited to meet it.

You can tell?

A couple of months later I showed up on Fort Ord in fancy boots, dashing dark brown corduroy slacks, and a twill jean jacket with tan highlights.

Then I got a hair cut and didn’t change clothes for a few months. At first meeting the Drill Sergeant called me fat. That’s the fat man in the second row of the top pic.

I was such a load I only scored 460 out 500 points on the physical fitness testing . . . on one leg.

But how could I be a fat nineteen year old at 210 lbs, when I’m not fat as a sixty-seven year old at 230 lbs?

What would Sergeants Easterling and Daybell say about that?

Probably drop me for twenty.

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Veterans skills in fashion go one of two ways: Either ignore it, or embrace the chance to standout for how you look, not what you can do.

That part confuses so many people, the part of looking like you know something.

While some trainees kept up an appearance to avoid drawing attention, others wore extra gear.

Super soldier wanted to look super in jump boots, extra starch, and an Army ring from their first PX visit.

My buddy got it all, but didn’t wear it. He said he’d been a pimp in St. Louis and needed to go back in pimp style.

I believed him.

The skilled veteran uses the experience in later life and arranges their clothes in order to wear what’s on top of the stack and what’s on the first hanger.

‘Keeping it simple’ is the word, not lazy.

Most Important Veteran Skills

The ‘MIVS’ (most important veterans skills, rookie) are doing things whether we like it or not.

“Do you enjoy doing this?”

“No.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

“Because I enjoy not enjoying it, and that’s a joy you can’t find every where.”

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PTSD is not a veteran skill.

Anyone can get it, but a PTSD veteran most likely didn’t get it from a trip to the dentist, even if the dentist took two hours yanking a crowned tooth with broken roots and a root canal.

So I hear.

Shorting veterans on health care after Agent Orange and burn pit exposure are not veterans skills, but the legislative skills of a chickenhawk.

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This Veterans Day take a moment to reflect on those who served their country because they made the choice.

Not drafted, not given a choice of jail or service, but joined of their own volition based on their future plans, or the crafty pitch of a recruiter who needed to make his number.

That’s my dad in this section, top center.

He was nineteen, too, but a Marine in 1950.

He shipped out to Korea at the worst time.

I was nineteen and shipped out to Philadelphia.

There’s a big difference between Korea and Philadelphia.

I like to think I did him proud. No demotions, no reprimands, no articles.

Did my time and soaked in the culture of the new All-Volunteer Army. That’s what they called it post-Vietnam.

I met retired veterans doing my job and asked them how they felt about the new Army.

“We used to have the black boot Army, then the brown boot Army.”

“What’s the difference.”

“The black boot army turns into the brown boot army when you have to stick a foot up too many asses to get things done.”

“Ohh.”

“It went from black boot, to brown boot, to whatever this fucking thing is.”

He was a salty character who didn’t look fondly on the Army improvements.

Did I ask him if I could have cut it in the black boot or brown boot Army?

Helllll no. He’s already made the call.

My veteran skills kicked in, and I wasn’t even a veteran yet.

I heard what he said and didn’t enjoy his nasty attitude toward my Army, but I did enjoy his place in it.

And that’s a joy you don’t find everywhere.

Happy Veterans Day, with joy.