Wearing Your Medals With Your Kilt

[wsk]

I understand where you're coming from, James. Like you, I didn't serve for the thanks of the folks at home. In fact, I'm always very slightly uncomfortable when someone thanks me for my service, because I feel that I, as a veteran of Gulf Wars Episode 1, did much less than my fathers, who were in Viet Nam, or my grandfathers, who were in WWII.

At the same time, I think that civilians won't understand unless they ask, and we tell them. And one way to tell them that we're open to being asked, that we'll tell them, is to wear our decorations at the appropriate times.

And it doesn't hurt to remember our friends who didn't come home. So the more I think about it, the more I think I will get a ribbon bar to wear on my scrubs on memorial day and veteran's day.

Yeah. What he said.

I did six years in the Navy punching holes in the ocean. I got a good conduct ribbon - this despite certain in-your-face comments to the captain that kept me from getting to E5 when I should have. I got a marksmanship ribbon with the E device because it was so cold that day that I couldn't twitch the trigger. I got a Battle E ribbon because the ship was efficient (twice). And I got a Navy Sea Service Ribbon for punching the aforementioned holes.

Woo who.

But I also got my Dolphins and Detergent Patrol Pin. These I wear on Veterans Day because these mean something to me. The earning of them made me one of that special group of men who go down in the sea in submarines.

I think it's important for all who have done military service to, on these celebratory days, wear something that shows that we did do good service. Not so much for civilians, they don't understand, but for each other. Who knows, you might find a new friend.

But am I Veteran. Nah. I joined the Navy for absolutely selfish reasons. There was no sacrifice on my part. Besides: "We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." -- Will Rogers (for whom, by the way, my submarine was named)