Every Veteran is A Snowflake

The Veterans In Our Lives Come In All Different Shapes, Sizes, and Colors; So Should Our Attempts at Rememberance

Every Veteran is a Snowflake. Now, before I have people writing me telling me how disrespectful I am, that statement is a means to say that every veteran is different. Some served in combat. Others worked a desk job or served food. Some joined the military out of a sense of pride or obligation. Others went kicking and screaming. For every vet who proudly wears a remembrance of their time in the service, there is another who does not like to announce that they served a day in uniform. In this day and age, where uber-patriotism characterized by overt spectacles aimed at calling attention to service is the norm, It is important to remember that because the veterans in our lives are different, how we remember them should be, too. And, often, the vets will show us how best to commemorate their service. This is a lesson I learned by watching my own family and friends.

Veterans Day has always been a big deal in my family. The Klucks of Wisconsin have served in the military since the Civil War, and the family's pride in that fact runs strong. Still, I never got the sense that we were a group who unthinkingly put our faith in our country or rammed the service of our family down the throats of others. Like many others in America and elsewhere, my family saw the time their loved ones served as just another time in a life that went on before their service, and luckily, in the case of my family, carried on after. The veterans in our lives dictated how we came to this response. That list of vets is long.

I had six Great Uncles serve in World War II. Eight, if you count the husbands of my Great Aunts who both served in the Pacific. Mary Jane’s husband, Jerry Colrud was on on the U.S.S. California at Pearl Harbor and went on to serve all over the Pacific. My Great Aunt Glady’s husband “Coogie” was a Seabee building airfields in the push to Tokyo. They were all proud of their time in uniform. Tommy, Hubert, Lawrence, Beggie (Reggie), Billy, and Eugene served all over the world, saw the battlefield and the backwater, fondly remembered their service, and still, we rarely felt that they talked about that time in their lives. That did not mean they were unaware of where they went or what they did. They just felt like there were more important things to focus on. Like how the Packers were doing. Which in the 80s and 90s, when these conversations occurred, was not very well.

The same can be said for the other vets in my family, on both sides. My grandpa’s nephew went to Korea with the Air Force. I had second cousins who went to Vietnam. An uncle who was a Marine in the mid-1970s. Another second cousin who would serve in Germany and Kuwait at the end of the Cold War as part of the Seventh Army and then headed to Iraq as an N.C.O. with the Wisconsin National Guard. They all see their time in the service differently, and I try to take their lead on how they want to memorialize that time. The same can be said of my conversations with my friends who spent time with Uncle Sam

The Kluck boys who went to war were much more likely to talk Green Bay Packers football when they came back than their time in the service.

When I got out of high school in 1999, the military was an excellent way for many of my friends from small-town Wisconsin to pay for school. By the time I got out of college (undergraduate and graduate school), a few of those friends and a couple I met along the way, had been to Afghanistan and Iraq and lost friends while they were there.

How I talked with them about their time in the military depended on how they wanted to talk about it. When they wanted to talk, I talked. When they needed someone to listen, I listened. If they wanted to make a big deal out of their service, I did, too. And when they wanted to be quiet, I said a soft word and left them alone.

In treating them that way, and trying to learn from them when I could, I became accepted as an ally far quicker than if I made their service about me. And, really, the vets I know want that more than a pat on the back or a thank you for your service. They just want someone to try and understand them. Because of that, you will see me spending Veterans Day honoring them by honoring their wishes.