An Obscure Quote from a Obscure Movie Sums It All Up For Many Veterans
by James Glaser
July 4, 2011

People have many different reasons for celebrating the 4^th of July. For some, it is a long weekend off, and for others, it is a great weekend for their business and their bottom line. Many people enjoy the family get-together followed by fireworks at night. Others will have a weekend of work, and others will be thinking about their past. The 4^th of July is many things to many people.

Many small towns and large cities have a parade on the 4^th, with marching bands, patriotic floats, and a theme that honors veterans past and present.

But what about the veteran, and what is he or she is thinking about on this day? For the veteran, flag waving seems to be a waste of time, and the crack of fire works and the lighted night sky can bring back memories better left alone.

I once watched a movie named "The Four Feathers," and like all British war movies it was filled with military tradition, the Union Jack, and talk of honor, but right at the end, a blind veteran summed up what being a veteran who experienced combat thinks about:

You may be lost, but you are not forgotten. For those who have traveled far, to fight in foreign lands, know that the soldier's greatest comfort is to have his friends close at hand. In the heat of battle it ceases to be an idea for which we fight. Or a flag. Rather we fight for the man on our left, and we fight for the man on our right. And when armies are scattered and the empires fall away, all that remains is the memory of those precious moments that we spent side by side.

Now maybe thoughts about your time in war coming to the forefront on the 4^th of July might seem strange to those who have never gone, but for many veterans it doesn't take much for those thoughts to jump out at them. In truth, they are sitting there all the time, and you are very lucky if your daily life is interesting or fulfilling enough that your war time experiences get pushed to the back of your mind.

It doesn't take much.. A helicopter could be going over your house, there might be some special smell that sets your thoughts off, or even some type of food you associate with your time in the service. An easy one is the sound of gun fire and maybe a distant firecracker muffled by foliage might sound like something you heard before. For some, it is the start of rain, and for others it could be the flashing of sunlight coming through the trees.

There are a million things that can get a vet thinking of his past, and there are millions of veterans who think about their war every day. It doesn't end with the war, with your enlistment, or even with all the years that go by.

We ask a lot of our troops, and if that man or woman can feel that they did their duty and protected their country, that helps a bunch. However, no matter how noble they think the cause was, and how honorably they fought, the sights and sounds and smells of combat are never fun to think about, and sometimes no matter what you are doing, they come back to haunt you, and you might never be able to figure out what made them reappear.

So, the 4^th of July can be a happy fun-filled time for many. Some remember that we are celebrating the signing of our Declaration of Independence and that is a good thing, but that declaration also signaled the start to our first war, and that gave us our first veterans.

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