Veterans Day deserves honor
Thursday is Veterans Day, in
case you’d forgotten.
For many, it’s merely an
other paid holiday from work, an in
convenience with the banks closed,
or nothing special at all. And that’s a
tragedy, because Veterans Day com
memorates the sacrifices made by
American military men and women
for the past 200 years.
The American Legion and Veter
ans of Foreign Wars posts here in
town will individually sponsor events
to mark the occasion. The city of
Lincoln and the state of Nebraska, as
far as can be detected, have no such
plans. It’s a real shame, too.
I grew up in a small town in west
ern Kansas, which I still like to think
of as “real America.” Smack in the
middle of the Great Wheat Belt of
the High Plains, Lamed, Kan., was a
place stuck in time, created by the
brush of Norman Rockwell.
Like any American small town, it
was a very patriotic place, where
schoolchildren still recited the Pledge
of Allegiance before class and the
Lord’s Prayer. The American Civil
Liberties Union never got to Larned.
Every Nov. 11, school let out, busi
ness suspended, and the citizenry
gathered on Broadway Avenue for
the annual Veterans Day parade. For
me, being in the school band, it meant
marching with a sousaphone. And,
being western Kansas in November,
it meant freezing cold, valves icing
up, lips in danger of sticking to the
mouthpiece, and a sore shoulder.
But, when the procession stopped
and the tornado sirens blew at 11
a.m. sharp, I knew what I was really
there for. It was the 11th hour of the
11 th day of the 11 th month. The end
of the War to End All Wars. My dad
always watched, stood at attention
when the sirens blew. I always won
dered what he saw or what he was
thinking at those moments.
1 grew up in a family that was, on
my father’s side, thoroughly steeped
But, when the procession
stopped and the tornado sirens
blew at 11 a.m. sharp, I knew what
I was really there for. It was the
11th hour of the 11th day of the
11th month. The end of the War to
End All Wars.
in American military tradition. My
ancestors came here from Ireland
during the Civil War to fight for the
Union Army. Their sons went to Cuba
in 1898. Their grandsons went to
France in 1917.
And when the time came, my fa
ther went to the Pacific in 1943. He
was only 17, but with the resolve of
young men eager to join a great cru
sade, he enlisted in the Marine Corps.
His father had to sign the enlistment
papers, as my dad was underage.
Grandad Kepficld could have said
“No,” but he remembered all too well
the fire he’d felt doing the same thing
in 1918.
Dad served for three years, seeing
action in places like Saipan, Tinian
and I wo Jima and got sent to China
for a brief stint after the war. Later,
as a reservist, he did drill instructor
duty at the local unit. A physical
ailment kept him from going to Ko
rea; just as well, since that unit took
heavy casualties at the Chosin Reser
voir.
And, of course, I heard all the
stories from him about being stuck in
mudholes on some godforsaken Pa
cific island, listening to Japanese sol
diers march a few feet away in pitch
dark. 1 heard the stories from his
friends, too. One was a belly gunner
on a B-25 over Europe; another went
into the Navy as an anti-aircraft gun
ner in the Pacific. It was an intense,
nerve-wracking hell they went
through. But it was also probably the
best lime of their then-young lives.
They were young, in their prime, on
the side of good fighting an inde
scribable evil that would have de
stroyed all that we take for granted
today.
They arc the men we honor to
morrow.
I also remember my dad talking
about how, in his boyhood, Veterans
Day featured aging Civil War vets.
Union and Confederate. In their 80s
and 90s many still wore their uni
forms every year — riding in sepa
rate cars, of course — still fiercely
proud of the great deed they had done
three-quarters of a century before.
We arc seeing the same thing now.
The 18-ycar-olds who went to fighi
the Japanese arc now in their 70s.
They will soon be gone, taking a
crucial part of American history and
character with them. They gave ev
erything, risked death, so their un
born children would grow up in free
dom, never knowing the shackles o(
tyranny.
If you’ve never really thought
about how precious your liberty and
freedom arc, if you’ve never pon
dered about how it came to be and
how it was preserved for two centu
ries, you might take a few moments
tomorrow to thank those who went to
foreign countries. Remember those
who didn’t come back. 1 will, as I do
every Nov. 11.
Semper Fi, pop.
Kepfield is a graduate student in history
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Too many remain blind to sides
ast week I wrote about being a
white man — this isn’t going
to be a column about writing a
column, so don’t worry.
At least one reader, the editor of
the paper as a matter of fact, com
mented that it was conservative’s day
on the opinion page because my col
umn, which he considered conserva
tive last week, regularly appears
along with Sam Kepficld’s: arch con
servative columnist for the Daily
Nebraskan.
This reminded me of all the times
I have been accosted on the streets
and sidewalks and in the bars of this
city by people who demand to know
why I go on working for such a reac
tionary, right-wing paper.
Curiously, the number of times
this has happened is roughly equal to
the number of times I’ve been simi
larly accosted by those who would
like to know why I still work in such
a hive of political correctness — as a
tool of the liberals on campus.
Mostly these individuals are
drunk, highly politicized or both.
But the interesting fact remains
that, to many people, all subjects of
discussion can be approached through
only two mutually exclusive avenues.
It’s the old on/off binary model of
reality that our culture inherited from
misinterpretations of Aristotle, which
arc themselves unspeakably ancient.
“He who is not for me, is against
me," as Jesus said so long ago.
Of course the same guy also said
the reverse: That whoever was not
against him was for him.
At least he saw the ambiguity of
the situation.
It all reminds me of a routine Gar
rison Keillor did the first time 1 ever
heard him.
Someone had returned from a trip
to the then-Soviet Union, at least
that’s how I remember it.
But the interesting fact remains
that, to many people, all subjects
of discussion can be approached
through only two mutually
exclusive avenues.
His friends asked him about his
trip; he said it had been a “positive
experience.”
“Doesn’t that limit you tojust two
kinds?” Keillor wanted to know.
In a way I feel sorry for those who
are trapped in the two-way street that
is modern American politics, partic
ularly as the right and left begin more
and more to resemble one another.
Their choices are so limited and
limiting: Anyone who fails to see at
least six sides of any two-sided prob
lem can’t find much interest in the
world, or so it seems to me.
The binary switch in people’s
heads is not wired in, no matter how
much it may seem so at times.
And I li admit it may do naruer
for some to learn to sec outside the
received categories. But it’s harder
for some people to learn to add and
subtract; that doesn’t mean we should
limit their education so they never
have to learn.
In politics in America, jingoism is
the order of the day. Debate never
escapes the damning labyrinth of par
ty doctrine.
“Which of these two proposed so
lutions is the best for the problem of
drugs? Inner city violence? Poverty?
Health care?”
The very question is stupid, limit
ing debate from the outset.
The problem is that it’s hard to
think for one’s self.
It’s so much easier to accept or
reject an offer.
Asking a politician if he or she is
“for" or “against” NAFTA, for in
stance, belies the question entirely.
NAFTA was conceived for a pur
pose. The real question is how does
that purpose serve us and is NAFTA
the best instrument of that purpose.
But that kind of inquiry requires
understanding, patience and the abil
ity to follow an argument longer than
a sound bite.
There were signers of the Consti
tution who were “for" the inclusion
of blacks under the rights of citizens.
There were others who were
“against” the inclusion of a Bill of
Rights, for fear that these rights would
be considered all-inclusive — as if
we re ever going to get even tnose
few paltry rights guaranteed in our
Bill of Rights.
They came to a regrettable com
promise as the best they could hope
for then and there.
In an on/off proposition, the best
possible result is compromise: the
third option that emerges with the
conflict of opposites.
If we could learn to seek these
kind of third options — or fourth or
fifth — we’d be that much closer to
real solutions to our social and polit
ical problems.
Baldridge Is a senior KngHsh major, a
Dally Nebraskan arts and entertainment se
nior reporter and a columnist.
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