By Col. Bill Connor ——Bio and Archives--November 10, 2024

Cover Story | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

Having grown up in a military family and then my own 30-year military career, my thoughts about Veterans Day have changed over the decades. When I was young growing up around military bases during the 1970s and early 80s, I remember my father and his fellow officers and soldiers being almost all Vietnam veterans in the “new” all-volunteer military.

They were primarily in their 20s and 30s, facing a hostile media and entertainment industry which generally portrayed them in a bad light. Vietnam vets were depicted as habitually unemployed and/or homeless and racked with guilt or post-traumatic stress disorder. The movies 'First Blood' and 'Deer Hunter' were good examples of this milieu. That came despite the reality of Vietnam veterans as a group more successful compared with those of their generation who didn’t serve.

Veteran’s Day at that time was not what we experience now, insofar as the primary veterans were Vietnam era with that negative stigma. At the time, World War II veterans were middle aged and a tough, silent group. World War I veterans were still around, though quite old (as were the........

© Canada Free Press