TRIBUTE TO MEMORIAL DAY

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When I was growing up in the Midwest in the 1990s, my Memorial Days were filled with the excitement of being out of school, as every kid in the neighborhood descended on public pools, still too cold to enjoy. We paid little attention to the American Legion Color Guard, populated by our grandfathers.
Now I know better. I’ve served two deployments in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. This Memorial Day marks 11-and-a-half years of war, and 12-and-a-half years since that clear September morning when the world changed.
These days, I again find myself in a classroom, now at Columbia University. I’m lucky to be here. At the same time, as I navigate the civilian world, I can’t shake the sense that for most Americans the wars are over, even though one still goes on.
Instead, Memorial Day has become a special-interest event, one honored by veterans. Many will make the pilgrimage to Arlington’s Section 60, the hallowed ground where this generation rests. Some will be found, posted in dusty bars, pouring libations while conjuring fading memories of those who can no longer drink with them.
To the trained eye, we are easy to identify, with our black-and-silver bracelets, our memorials for the living, to represent the memory of the dead.
In Time magazine a few years ago, writer Joe Klein called the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan “the new Greatest Generation.” I was featured in it, and today remain emotionally conflicted about its message. Klein’s label was sentimental and reductionist: Sentimental, in that it was an ode to the veterans of World War II; reductionist, in the sense that, unlike them, this generation of veterans does not represent a collective national experience.
Since that clear Tuesday morning in 2001, only 2.5 million Americans, or less than 1% of us, served in Iraq or Afghanistan. There have not been, and will not be, victory parades or great surrenders. This generation of veterans is more a scattering of voices in the crowd than the harmony of a choir.
Never in our country’s history has the nation sent so few to war, for such a long duration. That trend now has deep repercussions. The word “veteran” carries a stigma, as shown in the poor medical care for those coming back. Veterans of Vietnam tell me we have it easy. Perhaps.

CJ GUNTHER/EPA A day to mark.

But it’s important to note that in 1968, at the height of the war, 58% of Americans stayed glued to their televisions following the combat closely. In Vietnam, the draft meant that almost everyone knew someone whose lives were on the line in combat. The nation was deeply divided, but in that division there was nevertheless a dialogue.
Today, there’s no such dialogue. Veterans, both those alive and those no longer with us, are marginalized by apathy among much of the nation. In the larger culture, most Americans — many veterans included — try to avoid discussing U.S. wars and those who fight them, rather than risk raising an emotional response among others or being labeled unpatriotic.
Without that critical conversation, we risk not acknowledging the sacrifice of the more than 6,800 Americans killed and the hundreds of thousands injured. Only by publicly discussing the root causes of the war in Afghanistan, the last front in our recent history, and the dynamics that allowed it to persist, can we as a nation begin to move forward.
“Veteran” is a label I carry, one that I’m proud of, because the experience of military service has allowed me to experience more of my country than I ever thought possible. I served with Americans from all walks of life and from every state in our nation.
Once a year, on Memorial Day, with somber reflection, we honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Let us not forget the voices in the crowd.
Together the nation must honor their legacy and our own by continuing to grapple with the experience of war, even when that domestic battle feels painful.
Ford is a student at Columbia .