Serving (Some) Veterans

Yesterday I received what has become an annual gift in recognition of my two years of honorable service in the U.S. Army. A few days earlier I received my annual insult from the American Legion.

The gift was a delicious free meal at Applebee’s. The place was packed with veterans and their families.  Every vet who entered was presented with a nifty little red, white, and blue lapel button. The air was filled with “thank you for your service” wishes courtesy of the restaurant staff. 

Veterans young and old were having a ball. Some wore caps identifying their service. Not surprisingly, a few brought along a little barracks humor. We overheard one old geezer greeting another with, “Tom, I didn’t know you were in World War II.”

“I sure was,” Tom said. “And I even was on our side.”

On Tuesday, a thick packet of information, including a dozen free address labels, arrived from American Legion headquarters. The package also had a temporary membership card, a “certificate of nomination,” and a personalized letter. The letter congratulated me for doing military duty and said if I “qualified” I could become a member of the organization and receive numerous services.

To “qualify” all I had to do was certify that one day of my two years in the Army fell within certain time periods dating back to April 6, 1917. I already knew there would be no fit.  My two years of active duty don’t count, because the U.S. theoretically was not at war. Some of the guys from my unit who were sent to Viet Nam as “advisors” probably would be amused, or perhaps enraged, to learn that.

Once again, the Legion had the audacity to remind thousands of us “peacetime soldiers” that we are considered second-class vets. (for some details about this outrage, click on “Upon Further Review” under Most Popular Posts in the right-hand column on this page.)

Applebee’s considers every honorably discharged veteran a first-class vet. They serve all of us on Veterans Day. May the restaurant chain grow and prosper.

May the American Legion leaders, who sign their letters “serving veterans,” march straight to . . . .

Get on Down There

This is an unqualified endorsement of Applebee’s Veterans Day offer.  The national restaurant chain once again will provide free meals on November 11 to all who have served or are now serving our nation in the U.S. military.

If you’re a veteran of any kind, with an honorable discharge, go to Applebee’s on Friday for your choice of a free dinner from a very good menu.  If you’re on active duty, ditto.  If you’re not a veteran or on active duty, but know someone who is, grab him or her and take them to Applebee’s. That will show, in a very personal way, your appreciation of the sacrifices service people have made and continue to make.

The Veterans Day offer should apply throughout the U.S. and may include Canada.  It would be a good idea to check at a location near you to be sure the free meals are available there and learn what type of identification is needed to qualify.

In the future, you may want to introduce your favorite dinner companions to Applebee’s.  This company deserves your business.

___________________________________________

This commercial message was written, authorized, and posted by the Gabby Geezer, who may be found about noon on Nov. 11 enjoying a steak dinner at Applebee’s in Plainwell, Michigan, USA.

What Power (?)

Geez, just days after my post urging Congress to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military, Congress actually did that.


Unfortunately, no evidence indicates that any members of Congress read Cocktail Party opinions. One library board member does, though. Does that count?

Open the Closet Door

A Cocktail Party Position

Opponents of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gay servicemen and women are trying to ram through repeal legislation during the dying days of this Congress. The Cocktail Party hopes they succeed.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is bad policy. The American public recognizes that, as poll after poll shows a growing body of opinion that all our citizens deserve equal treatment under the law. Recent polls show most military personnel hold the same view, although some, primarily in the Army and Marines, disagree.

The policy was different, and more unfair, when the Cocktail Party chairman served in the U.S. Army in the late 1950s. At that time, any member, or potential member, of the military could be asked about their sexual orientation. An admission of homosexuality kept the individual from enlisting in the service or resulted in a speedy dishonorable discharge.

The 1950s policy apparently was effective in keeping “queers,” “homos,” or “dykes” (today’s “gays” sounds much more civil) out of the military, or deeply hidden within it. Your party chairman served nearly two years in a huge unit (850 enlisted men) in the Sergeant Major’s office, where just about everything was known about everyone. Not a single man was discharged for gay conduct or admitting to being gay. No one was even suspected of being gay.

A WAC battery right down the street was home to several hundred women. The old soldiers among the men claimed that most of the older enlisted women and many WAC officers were lesbians. Your chairman never saw or heard of any concrete evidence to back up those assertions. Certainly, there was plenty of evidence that a large number of the younger WACs were straight. Pregnancy discharges were fairly common, and intimate boy-girl conduct was commonplace.

No doubt gays have served in our armed forces throughout history, but they had to stay deep within the closet to continue their careers. The prospect of immediate discharge, or worse, must have been a constant nightmare for them. In the 1950s, a gay soldier would have been shunned by his comrades at best, and probably would have been subjected to physical violence in many units. Then, he would have been discharged.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” adopted during the Clinton administration years, made service by gays at least more possible and safer. But, this is 2010, not 1955 or 1995. It’s a good thing that attitudes and policy have changed on the side of justice, but now the policy needs to change once again to match current public attitudes and meet ethical standards.

The Cocktail Party firmly believes it is morally wrong and indefensible for any human being to be forced to lie, or worse, to live a lie, to have the opportunity to begin or continue any career, including military service.

Lunch with the Heroes

I was a peacetime soldier drafted into the U.S. Army in 1958.

The Ike we liked so much as president had concluded a truce in 1953 to end the Korean War, an undeclared war officially called a “conflict” at the time. Marines were laying their lives on the line in Lebanon, and troop trains pulled into sidings where I was in basic training, but the crisis blew over and officially we were never at war in the Middle East.

A few months later, we had several thousand “advisors” in Southeast Asia, and were training hundreds of Vietnamese artillery and missile men at Fort Sill where I was stationed, but officially we weren’t at war in Vietnam. Only the Cold War was in full flower when Uncle Sam plucked two years out of my young life.

When I and several million others completed our active duty assignments we became second-class veterans. Our country gave us most of the benefits first provided in the G.I. Bill after World War II, but in some cases our benefits were reduced. For example, men and women who served during official wartime years got ten point preferences for federal employment. We got five points.

Private groups also treated us with less than full respect. Many of the first-class veterans signed up in the American Legion to enjoy social life with buddies and push veteran’s causes. To this day, we second-class vets are not eligible to join the organization.

My feelings about having served in the “doughnut hole” of recent American military history were ambivalent. After all, chances of an enemy shooting at me were pretty low. However, they were pretty low for most of those who served in the Navy and Air Force in many wartime situations, and nearly nonexistent for the wiser young men in the late 1950s who signed up in the National Guard or reserve units, avoiding all but brief active duty stints.

It also occurred to me that those of us dumb enough to be drafted in peacetime probably shouldn’t rank right up there with wartime volunteers when applying for veteran’s benefits. I opted out of the Air Force ROTC program after two years. That wasn’t smart. Mostly, however, I didn’t worry about my missed opportunities or veteran status.

Although some of our institutions have not changed their rules, it seems that many Americans in recent years have decided all veterans are first-class. For a long time at patriotic moments during public events it was customary to give a round of applause for vets who served during our various wars. This summer, Sandy and I attended two concerts where the emcees made it clear that ALL veterans should rise and be recognized. It was a thrill to stand with heroes, even though I hardly qualify as one of those.

Yesterday we had lunch with a lot of heroes. On Veterans Day, Applebee’s restaurant gave a free meal to everyone who could prove military service, and not a whole lot of formal proof was required. The place was packed. And it was packed with pride. When a waiter asked one patron dining alone if he was a vet, the man pulled out a map to show where he served on an island in the Pacific. A much older man, who apparently didn’t expect to be asked, had brought nothing to prove he served in the World War II era. The waiter said, “Oh, never mind. It’s OK; your meal is on us.”

Thanks, Applebee’s, for honoring our heroes in a tangible way, and for promoting me to veteran first class, if only for a day.