This is my PC wallpaper, envisioning an early age when we were cave dwellers, really a beginning of us.  Caves were protection, but we still needed to guard the entrance to enhance that security.  And, when we went out to hunt, we needed more than hunters:  There had to be extras to protect the hunters.  When our food population declined, we needed the extras to protect our expanded hunting grounds.  This may be a basic source of aggression – the need to protect.

The cave, of course, is itself basic, and this image conjures the origin of the military – on the ground with clubs, axes, bows and arrows, whatever weapons the culture developed to fit its locale and its foraging needs.  When wounded or aged, these extras became veterans.  They were revered because they protected our lives and our livelihoods.

And we have veterans today, many the product of our volunteer service corps, whether on land, on or under the sea, or in the air.  Older veterans were often conscripted, but we don’t seem to define a difference.  Whether service was forced or volunteer, we still revere these men and women, for the original reason – in some way each one has protected our lives and our livelihood.  It hasn’t seemed to matter much to most of us whether the service was in a justified effort to protect, or one that is questionable.  Those who protect don’t have the luxury of making that distinction.

In this context, why do we support our veterans so poorly?  Homelessness and hospitalization traumas are but a few of the facets of our neglect.  Unconsciousness of PTSD has become almost a way of life, and only disastrous consequences of the disorder get our attention from the media.

Is guilt the cause of our contrary hyper-fixation on the flag, service awards, and veteran worship?  Sometimes the worship becomes overwhelming and related rhetoric raucous.  How can we bring our historic reverence for veterans, as a national book reviewer has stated, into “the realm of the sparkling mundane”?  Answers will be welcome!