(The following editorial appeared on the Detroit Free Press website on November 11, 2009.)
DETROIT — Veterans Day 2009 finds the nation still reeling from the nightmarish images of last week’s massacre at Ft. Hood. If any American needed to be reminded how unreasonable the sacrifice demanded of those who serve this nation in uniform can be, the senseless slaying of unarmed soldiers on their native soil provided a brutally poignant case in point.
In America’s previous wars, military service was a responsibility distributed widely. In today’s volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, it’s a burden borne by a tiny minority — men and women mobilized not by some external mandate but by some inner combination of patriotism, honor and economic necessity. This growing disparity of sacrifice demands that the vast majority of contemporary Americans for whom war has occasioned nary a ripple of inconvenience pay serious attention to the veterans and active-duty soldiers of whom it has demanded so much more.
The fact that the many who’ve never served in uniform can never fully compensate the few who have shouldn’t excuse us from trying.
For us, and for our elected representatives in Washington, Veterans Day should be an occasion to consider whether the United States is adequately addressing the medical and economic needs of those who continue to pay the price of our current and former wars. The carnage at Ft. Hood is only the most recent suggestion that the needs continue to outpace the resources devoted to them.
If you know a veteran, take the time to express your gratitude for sacrifices those who’ve never known military service can scarcely begin to appreciate. If you are a veteran, thank you.