I am sitting at home on Thanksgiving 2017 with a turkey breast on the smoker and some time on my hands to reflect. I find the Grumpus Minimi (pronounced min-EE-my) thankfully entranced with Charlie Brown specials, and Mrs. Grumpus busy making the pumpkin pie. Yes, for this five minutes my life feels like a Norman Rockwell painting (ignoring the Hawaii climate). I have much to be thankful for with respect to my life, this year more than any other. I hope as you’re reading this you feel the same way. If so then I believe our thoughts are aligned with the original intent of this holiday.
We’ve moved on to Paw Patrol apparently.
I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. A day set aside by one of the richest nations to ever exist in human history in order for its citizens to reflect with friends and family on the bounty that life found fit to bestow upon them, always appealed to me. Declared a national holiday in 1863 at the height of the U.S. Civil War, I would also suggest that part of the original intent included a belief by then President Lincoln that we should be thankful despite the hardships life has set in our path. As any student of U.S. history can tell you, my nation has thankfully never again seen such hardship as the Civil War. Continue reading →
For those veterans in the audience, Happy Veteran’s Day 2017. Veteran’s Day in the U.S. is celebrated on 11 November, which in many other parts of the world is celebrated as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day. While originally designed to commemorate the sacrifice of those who served in, and the devastation caused by, World War I; there are nuanced differences in how the holiday is marked presently. The most obvious difference in the U.S. is that Veteran’s Day is not designed to celebrate those who died (that’s what we call Memorial Day), but those who currently serve and formerly served in the military. It’s meant to provide the nation an opportunity to pause, be thankful for, and engage with its veterans.
The Census Bureau’s latest info graphic for Veteran statistics.
Given that less than 1% of the U.S. population currently serves in the military, and as little as 9% have previously served; a holiday like Veteran’s Day provides a rare but important mechanism for renewing the Nation’s commitment to both its current and former military members. Conversely, it also provides those in the U.S. military the opportunity to connect with and renew their commitment to the populace it protects and the democratically elected civilian-run system which guides it. It’s most appropriate to thank a veteran for their service on Veteran’s Day.
Controversially, perhaps, I believe it’s less appropriate to thank current serving members for their service outside of Veteran’s Day. Not that I believe it’s wrong to thank service members on all occasions outside of Veteran’s Day. There might be plenty of good reasons from the ultra-personal to the ultra-obvious for a person to do so. But, I believe as a U.S. citizen you shouldn’t feel pressured into thanking service members simply because you think it’s the required thing to do, or because you believe we require it from you. You shouldn’t and we don’t. It’s neither healthy for a democracy’s citizens to feel pressured into supporting its military blindly, nor is it healthy for a democracy’s military to believe your thanks is some sort of right to be demanded from its citizenry.
“Thanks” should be genuine and not built off some misinformed interpretation of what it means to be patriotic, or a mistaken belief that your military requires it from its citizens. Furthermore, while your thanks is appreciated, your obligation as a voting citizen runs deeper than simply thanking service members. We are, after all, a military 16 years into the Nation’s longest conflict. We are overseen and run by civilians appointed by the President and the Congress. Your tax money pays our salaries. Your elected officials decide if and when we go to war. The constitution we swear to uphold and defend provides all us the liberties we enjoy and love. Thus, we are your military. As a result, I believe it’s important that taxpayers and voters engage at a more intimate level with the military than what a simple “thank you” conveys.
In that vein, I pulled the following story out of the Grumpus Maximus historic annals to provide you just that opportunity to engage more intimately with one military member. Given that this is a personal finance blog, I kept it related to my experience with the interplay between remuneration, service, and the issue of “thanks”. You might think the three have nothing in common, but my experience will hopefully change your mind. Continue reading →
