Veteran’s Day has always been a slightly awkward holiday for me. I’ve given my life to the military, but I haven’t actually served. I spent my youth enamored by just how long Daddy’s shoelaces were, and trying (but mostly failing) to lace up his combat boots. He'd laugh and walk out the door. I’m pretty sure he fixed my knots in the car, though, because they always came back looking different. The pretty bows I made for the world to see were always carefully tucked away inside his boots.
When I was little, my favorite toy in the whole house was the shoe polisher. It didn’t come out often, but when it did, I’d watch the red and black fluffy sides spin and spin and spin as Daddy’s shoes grew shinier and shinier and shinier. Something amazing happened when the shoes were shined. For one thing, Mom got dressed all beautiful in her red dress, or her black dress. She’d put her hair up, with a few locks falling out. She was perfection.
I’d often sneak into the garage and fiddle with it, hoping one day my shoes could be as shiny. That’s a little harder when you’re a girl, though, and all your shoes are velvet. Still, I’d pet the buffers, and ask them nicely if they would spin and spin and spin until my shoes were shined so then I could be a princess, too. They never did, and I never got the fancy dress, either. But that’s okay, the sacrifice was worth it.
As I grew older, sacrifice became a word I donned well. Ready to move? Yes, sir. All packed? Yes, sir. Dad got a job in Alabama. Okay, let’s move, sir. I already have my boxes. Now we’re in Tennessee. Virginia. Texas. California. No state has ever been my home. Home, as it’s affectionately defined in our household, is simply the place your head hits the pillow twice in a row, which meant a lot of different places for my siblings and me.
Some homes were fun. We traveled up to Washington one time to visit my father after he’d had ankle surgery from an injury he sustained in war. The hotel we stayed at gave us a sense of unity as our family was together once again. Some of them not so much. I’ve stayed cot on the floor of a friend’s house as we prepared to leave our life once again. That week of transition was one of the hardest in my life. Moves were always difficult, but this time it felt like we were moving a country away. To be fair, we were, kind of. The distance between Virginia to California (that’s 2,806 miles from one home to the next) is no small gap when you’re 10-years-old.
As a kid, Veteran’s Day was one of my favorite days of the year. My father would dress in his uniform and we would go to IHOP, or Denny’s, or some place spectacular, and celebrate. Our table would be filled with laughter and stories and fun. Dad would take our straw papers and shoot them at us. One time, he taught us how to turn them into water worms. (That’s where you scrunch the paper down your straw until it’s about an inch long. Then you slide it off and drip water onto the center and watch in awe as it grows and grows and grows.) It’s a favorite trick of mine, even to this day.
Those days felt perfect, like all the anger and fear and sadness were worth it. People, strangers, would approach him and thank him for his service. I felt like the daughter of a superhero. My dad was saving the world. One country at a time. He’d fought in wars, and I had the letters written on the back of his MRE to prove it. He’d done crazy missions, and ridden donkeys, and touched grass sharp enough to cut. He’d done things worth writing movies about. And he was my father. I was allowed to celebrate in his glory.
Now, it’s a little more nuanced. As I enter the civilian sphere, Veteran’s Day confuses me. Not because I don’t know the meaning. I do. I’ve lived that life every day of my life. But because I no longer feel the same way about the holiday. I can watch from afar as veterans are honored for their service, but I can’t participate in that honor anymore. I can’t stand alongside a hero, who now lives 2186 miles away, and feel inspired, too.
This is not to say I’m begging for honor, I’m not. I haven’t had a gun pointed at my craft. I haven’t been shot down. I haven’t delivered young men and women to their deaths. I haven’t been on eggshells waiting for a call to combat. I haven’t personally experienced any of these things.
This is just to say, that other civilian milbrats, you are not alone. You are recognized; you are heard; you are understood. Maybe not by the general populace, but by me, and the rest of us who’ve lived through 14 moves, 7 deployments, numerous TDYs, multiple countries, too many visas, and no childhood friends.
There will always be people who judge us for carrying a military ID when we haven’t served. When we don’t have stories of crazy work happenings, and amazing tales of honor. I know I’ve been told I haven’t “earned” those rights, that they aren’t mine to claim. But they’re wrong. Your mother, your father, they are the veterans. But you, you are the unsung hero--the backstage crew member.
When you see the Veteran’s Day posts, be proud. You served with that. When you see them, also remember it’s okay to feel differently than you did as a kid. It’s okay to miss the moments of your childhood, every time the “thank you” was indirectly extended to you as well. It’s okay to struggle with a loss of identity. It’s okay to feel misrepresented and misunderstood. Our shoes are hard to fill, and no one but us can describe the sacrifice it took to make us who we are. Civilian warriors.
