Veterans Pride

I was browsing around the Internet today looking to buy a couple of flags to put out for Veterans Day on November 11th and I came across the "Veterans Pride Initiative."

The Secretary of Veterans Affairs created the initiative where military veterans are encouraged to wear their service medals on Veterans Day, Memorial Day and Fourth of July.

I am a U.S. Army veteran and proud of it. I'm not so sure, however, that I will be sporting my medals this Veterans Day.

Prior to this initiative, which began before Veterans Day in 2006, it was against various military regulations to wear full-size or miniature medals with civilian attire. As such, each medal usually comes with a small lapel pin version of the medal or ribbon.

This lapel pin was designed to be worn on a civilian suit jacket or the like. Usually veterans, if they wear one, will wear one lapel pin from the highest medal awarded. In the Army, we also have the "Iron Mike" lapel pin which is given to honorably discharged Army veterans.

So if we already have something to wear on our civilian clothes, my question is, why do we have to wear all of our medals? It looks out of place to me, almost ridiculous.

And where do you draw the line? There are medals, ribbons, unit awards, badges and foreign awards and badges. The Veterans Administration shows pictures suggesting veterans wear either full-size medals, miniature medals, or full-size medals with ribbons and badges. That seems a little excessive to me.

But I guess the point is to allow other people, civilians, identify a veteran walking down the street. That way, presumably, they could walk up and thank the veteran.

With the current lapel pins, nobody knows what they are except other veterans. I wear my Iron Mike pin every so often and no one recognizes it, even some veterans.

But I like that. The last thing I want is someone walking up to me in the street and thanking me. That's not saying I'm not proud of my service.

I have a "United States Army" sticker on the back of my truck, to show my pride of course. My wife thinks it's ridiculous.

"Your not in the Army anymore, you got out ten years ago!" she said.

Yes, but I served the country for five years and I'm proud of that. I'll probably keep an Army sticker on my vehicle forever.

That reminds me of a joke Meat Bob Goldthwait told once. He noted how Oliver North always wore his military uniform during his Senate inquiry even though North had long since retired from the Marines. Goldthwait said that he's had a lot of jobs in the past but you don't seem him tooling around in a McDonalds uniform.

So this Veterans Day, walk up to a veteran walking down the street and give him/her a big ol' hug. You'll be able to identify them by the medals hanging off their chests.