Stolen

The veneration of soldiers as heroes is an honor reserved for military members who served - especially those who sacrificed their lives, health, safety, and sanity.

To be clear, I’ve never been a soldier. I’ve never served in any branch of the military. The Army recruiting office I visited as a 17 year old told me I was too underweight to join - which is funny now considering how chunky I’ve become as an adult. Regardless, the experiences of our armed forces is something I’ll never fully understand no matter how many stories I hear from people who actually served in combat. I can read history books, play Call of Duty, or watch war movies and none of it will compare to the horrors real soldiers endured.

The greatest insult to our veterans is the way this nation treats them. Our government is eager to send our soldiers off to war but hesitant to help those soldiers when they return home physically, emotionally, and mentally broken. War is hell, or so I’ve been told. But a greater hell awaits when the fighting is over and these warriors are abandoned to civilian life with missing limbs, bullet wounds, damaged hearing, traumatic brain injuries, and PTSD. They’re expected to figure it out alone in a country with shortages of mental health professionals and understaffed VA hospitals. We broke them then refuse to fix them. They need our help and we’ve turned a blind eye to their needs. That, in my opinion, is a bigger middle finger to our military personnel than any anti-war protest.

And for years I thought this is the worst we could do to those who served in the armed forces. I was wrong.

Then a draft dodging con-artist wormed his way into the presidency and championed himself as the only true hero the military needed while maligning POWs, families of soldiers killed in combat, and anyone wounded in the line of duty. Trump claimed avoiding STDs was his Vietnam. The man made repeated attempts to make it harder for veterans to qualify for benefits and tried to gut the Veteran Affairs Department budget every year he was in office. The VA staff shrank under Trump’s administration as 50,000 vacancies went unfilled creating severe staffing shortages and closures of clinics meant to help our veterans. When 100 soldiers reported concussion symptoms after an Iranian air strike, the former president brushed it off as mere headaches and said they were not significant injuries. He routinely skipped traditional visits to military ceremonies and battlefield memorials to play golf instead of honoring America’s fallen warriors. His Memorial Day and Veterans Day posts of social media were (and continue to be) abhorrent attacks against his perceived enemies while ignoring the real sacrifices made by our true military heroes.

Somehow this asshole who called our soldiers losers and suckers is lauded as the biggest supporter of the US military. How? Because this is the most insulting thing I could imagine.

This is stolen valor. Someone got confused because he never served. Donald was granted deferments thanks to a combination of his rich daddy’s money and a fake claim of bone spurs. His disdain for American soldiers is thoroughly documented. His face should never be associated with any form of military action.

It is my desire no one ever photoshops my face onto the body of a real soldier or prompts an AI generated image of me in military uniform. I hope no one conflates my respect for members of our military as my membership within their ranks. I’m just a civilian and that is all I’ll ever be. No matter how heroic I might someday become or the capacity to which I may contribute to the betterment of society, I will never be a soldier. I will never understand what it’s like to walk in their combat boots. I will never experience their commitment and sacrifice. If you want to celebrate a soldier, celebrate them - not me.

While we’re here, regardless of your feelings of the military and war, our veterans need and deserve support. There are ample opportunities for you to use your time and resources to help those in your community by reaching out to your local American Legion or VA.