The son of the original owner of the business was in the Army for six years with 35+ parachute jumps. By the time of Iraq he was around 34 yrs old, long out of the Army, being the de facto owner of the business since his father died. He, his widowed mother, and 8 yr old brother lived next door to the business.
So what Shrub was doing with Iraq – settling old family cartel feuds between Poppy BUSH and Saddam – was clear to just about everybody, invading some country that had nothing to do with 9-11. But the jingoism was a tidal wave hard to resist: the Congressional Democrats always afraid of being smeared as “unpatriotic”.
So the fellow was joining up again, whether from patriotism or who-knows (sign up bonus? – it ain’t wrong to be real about reasons for enlisting, minorities are known to enlist because of lack of employment and education opportunities). And there were a couple of customers there who were high rollers in different ways, one worked in a bank and was an age to be able to “go,” but he wasn’t going, but was all cheerleading the coming war. The vet was due to go in during October (2002?). And it was September and I was wearing my VFW jacket and this banker dude was all Chickenhawk about Iraq and started “thanking” me for my Service. I said he didn’t need to thank me. He got all pumped, saying he DID need and want to thank me for my service. And I said he didn’t. Then the vet walked in and I pointed to him and told the Chickenhawk, “If this dude comes back in a box, don’t come near me again, don’t talk to me, don’t try to shake hands.” And later in a private talk I said to the vet that his mother and brother depend on him, that he has already served enough and more than all the Chickenhawks, and that this aggression on some random country was not worth his coming back in a box. He didn’t say he agreed, but after that his signing up date just passed on by, nothing else was said, but he didn’t go.
This is NOT in any way to denigrate all the volunteers into the military. I myself was a volunteer into Vietnam ‘67-68 during its height and from a university campus known for anti-war protests, and something might have been wrong with that the same way.
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