My favorite metaphor for military service is the blank check. I’ve heard it often and you probably have as well. The idea is, when you put on the nation’s uniform you sign a blank check made payable to the United States of America, with the amount to be filled in later by the payee. My metaphor is unfortunately running out of time, as I have to first explain what a check is to teenage audiences.
As we contemplate Veterans Day, and the service of veterans over the years, I thought it worthwhile to consider for a few minutes how the blanks on those checks get filled in:
On the low end of the scale, but not insignificant, are the long hours, weekends, and holidays. During one of my Marine Corps postings in California, I was assigned a civilian workforce to offload armored vehicles belonging to the Army 2nd Armored Division. This equipment was coming in by rail from Fort Hood for a desert exercise north of our base.
All was going well until 4:00pm on Friday rolled around, and the foreman came up to me and said, “Well Major, we’ll see you Monday morning.” When I protested, he cited the union rules to me. After receiving my worst chewing out since the Citadel from the Division Commander, General George Patton IV no less, I was able to round up a group of Marines who, unfortunately for them, had not departed the base for liberty. There is no nine to five, or overtime, for Marines. It all goes on the blank check.
Further up the scale are deployments, sometimes called ‘routine’ deployments. I was once aboard a World War II era troop ship off the coast of Cyprus for 75 days. I thought this was pretty hard duty until I watched the USS Abraham Lincoln return to home port after 321 days. All those days go on the blank check.
Finally, too often, the check is filled in with deployments to war zones and combat. My wife and I had our first child in March 1972. Two months later, I received orders to Okinawa and subsequently to Vietnam. I left my wife and brand new daughter alone in Myrtle Beach for a year. Military spouses sign a blank check of their own. My best friend as a lieutenant was Judd Spainhour, from Lenoir, North Carolina. He was a former defensive back for UNC and the epitome of how you might picture a Marine officer. We left 2nd Force Recon Company and Camp Lejeune at the same time in 1966, bound for Vietnam. He went to First Reconnaissance Battalion while I went to the 3rd. He was killed on September 15, 1966 while on patrol near the DMZ. That check was filled in with the life of a future Marine Corps general. And not just his life. And this fact haunts me more as the years go by. I returned home from Vietnam, got married, had four children, eleven grandchildren, and now one great grandchild. For Judd, nothing followed. Untold generations were sacrificed on that day in Vietnam. Think about these lost generations when you contemplate the hundreds of thousands of other servicemen and women who have paid the ultimate price for America.
So, I never want to hear a fellow veteran say apologetically that “I never went overseas.” Or “I only worked in an office.” One of my missions in life is to remind every veteran of the blank check that he or she signed. And the many ways that blank can be filled in. Being prepared for long hours, deployments, and even combat is what it means to wear the uniform of the United States of America.
To all veterans, thank you for your service. And to Vietnam veterans, Welcome Home!
God bless you, and God bless America.
