What do we need to know about veterans? - Stripes - Independent U.S. military news from Iraq, Afghanistan and bases worldwide: What does America need to know about its new veterans? That we aren’t one voice, one experience, one memory, one preconceived notion fulfilled that can be stapled to our country’s heels like Peter Pan’s shadow? That we’re both varied and small? That 2.5 million of us have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, a number that’s roughly the population of tiny, frozen Latvia, a number that only begins to hint at the separation between the postmodern empire and its legions?
Does history, the teacher of life according to Cicero, yield answers? How did a nation two generations removed from pushing back the onslaught of fascism get here? How did a society one generation removed from the great scar of Vietnam arrive here?
What happened to the America we woke up to on September 12, unified, defiant and proud?
Is it because in an all-volunteer force, it’s someone else’s sons and daughters who fight?