Last week as I sat in Osborne Elementary School’s gym, watching my son and his classmates perform a Veterans Day ceremony, I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I watched them sing songs like “It’s a Grand Old Flag.” I’d been out of the Army for over 15 years and had never felt such emotion at a public event.
I was working at a Manhattan financial firm on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. We watched our CNBC monitors in horrified disbelief as the planes struck the World Trade Center. At the time I was only a few years out of college and enjoying life in Manhattan. The Excel spreadsheets I busied myself with suddenly seemed unfulfilling.
Serving my country
I quit my job the following week and resolved to find a way to serve my country, and ultimately volunteered to join the Army, where I would spend just shy of five years as an infantry officer.
My decision to serve had not been a rational one. I didn’t have a long-term plan, nor was I narcissistic enough to believe that my service would have any impact on American foreign policy. I did feel an abstract desire to defend some sort of imagined Norman Rockwell Americana that had always appealed to the romantic in me. This America had never really existed, and yet suddenly felt endangered.
Five years later, I returned home after a violent year deployed to Iraq’s Anbar Province. Thankfully I never experienced the typical manifestations of PTSD or found myself in the dark place that had resulted in over 30,000 veterans of the post-9/11 wars killing themselves — far more than the 7,057 service members killed in combat during that time. A former soldier in my infantry platoon recently told me that he’d stopped counting guys he’d known in the Army who’d committed suicide when the number hit 15.
But as my post-service years passed, I found myself increasingly adrift from, and demoralized by, a country that seemed less and less to resemble the idealized America of 4th of July parades and summer nights at the ballpark that I’d used as psychological fuel for my wartime service.
Frustrations piled up
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed being reunited with friends and family, and generally resuming the comfortable American life I’d been blessed with prior to joining the Army. But underneath this generally happy existence there were frustrations that began to pile up as the years passed.
It didn’t seem right that none of those responsible for starting the Iraq War were ever held accountable for such a disastrous decision launched under false pretenses. Even more dispiriting was witnessing in real time a country that seemed to be coming apart at the seams.
After fighting alongside young Americans of all stripes taking on a real enemy that was trying to kill us, it was depressing to see how many Americans back home saw the opposing political party as the primary villain to be vanquished and by any means necessary. With each election cycle, campaign yard signs gradually began to strike me not as healthy signs of a vibrant democracy, but rather as demoralizing reminders of tribal bifurcation.
“Hate Has No Home Here” signs seemed less convincing after too often seeing such tolerance only being extended to those who shared the owner’s ideological convictions. On the other side, “F-ck Biden” and “Let’s Go Brandon” signs were even more obvious symbols of societal corrosion.
Was this the America that some of my friends had been killed fighting for?
An uncomfortable day
And so it was that I filed into the elementary school gym on Veterans Day. I didn’t know what to expect. I’d never really been comfortable being called out for my service, and the rote corporate feel of the now ubiquitous tributes to military service at pro sporting events generally left me unmoved.
In the conference room, where donuts and coffee were provided, a few dozen other veterans were milling about with their families. The walls were decorated with pictures and handwritten notes from the students.
The veterans ranged from younger Afghanistan and Iraq veterans to some from the Vietnam era. It was an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse group, suburban executive men (and a few women) nattily attired in business casual mixing with tattooed men in 9-Line and Grunt Style t-shirts.
My son soon came bounding into the room, excited for the event (and to escape class). In recent days, as his class had rehearsed, the military must have been on his mind as he’d peppered me with questions about military service, a departure from his usual fascination with Pokémon and Legos.
Into the gym
We were then all invited into the gym, where the school was assembled. The program included a wonderful speech by a retired Air Force officer delivered in simple language the kids could understand followed by different grades singing each military branch’s song, as well as patriotic favorites. Several students then approached the lectern and delivered poems and letters they’d written in the touchingly earnest language of kids everywhere.
There was something healing in seeing the kids with their bright smiles, the innocent enthusiasm with which they sang, and sincerity with which they spoke. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve cried and yet I watched with tears in my eyes.
My anger over witnessing the sacrifices of a generation of soldiers wasted in the lost cause of Afghanistan before it was handed back to the Taliban, and in Iraq, where we toppled Saddam only to have him replaced by dueling Sunni extremists and Iranian militias, began to recede.
In its place was a sense of gratitude that the school had taken the time to organize such an event for us, and the students for doing such a great job. Watching the students fidget nervously as they sang “America the Beautiful” helped wash away regret over the war, its strategic folly, its human wreckage, and over the America we seem to be have become.
Unity, fraternity, appreciation
The ceremony tapped the same idealistic part of me that led me to quit my job and join the Army in the first place. I’m enough of a realist to know that this little assembly in an elementary school outside Pittsburgh doesn’t fix anything. Our recent wars were tragically misguided, and we remain a painfully divided country. Veterans will continue to struggle with myriad problems, and some will sadly choose to end pain that feels insurmountable.
Yes, I was inspired by the sense of unity, however transient, as the attendees gathered in a politically divided school district in a “battleground” state and yet all came together in a spirit of fraternity and appreciation.
But there was more to it. Some things move you on a deeper level. I was reminded of what this country looks like to a child. They see a better place, not yet infected by the divisions that come with age. We owe it to them to do better.
Will Bardenwerper (@WBardenwerper), author of “The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid,” is writing a book about small town baseball and community, to be published by Doubleday next year. He and his family live outside Pittsburgh. His previous article was “Friday night lights: Family-friendly football done right in Latrobe.”
First Published: November 19, 2023, 10:30 a.m.
