I should have known. 
I am the son of a Vietnam era veteran. 
I should have known.
We spent two years on a naval base in California 
during the height of the Vietnam War. 
My parents’ best friend was shot down over Vietnam.  
Every night we knelt by our beds and prayed 
for “Uncle Art to come home safely.”  
They found his remains and he was buried at sea.  
My mother flew out to the aircraft carrier 
to escort Art’s widow. 
I should have known. 
I grew up in a country striving to be a more perfect union.   
A bastion of freedom. 
I should have known what it means to be a veteran. 
Then I watched two towers crumble 
while ordinary people faced a choice of jumping to their deaths 
or dying in the fire and rubble.  
And the ordinary people who charged a cockpit 
knowing this was their last desperate act for survival. 
What does it mean to be a veteran?
To care about something so much you are willing to die for it. 
To voluntarily forfeit your independence 
and put your life in the hands of total strangers. 
To subject yourself to all manner of scrutiny, examination 
and harsh conditions. 
To immediately make lifelong friends with people 
from all across the human spectrum, 
and not care about their color, creed or caste. 
To work as a team toward one goal: complete the mission. 
To learn how to be lethal in the service of others and the mission.
To write letters of love and apology to a spouse and children 
to be opened and read in the event of death. 
To prepare oneself physically, emotionally and spiritually 
for death, including suicide in the event of potential capture. 
To stand next to a 19-year-old soldier 
as he determines who will get his death benefit. 
To be in a hospital in Germany and sit by the bedside 
of a teenager who just had his leg amputated, 
and call his mother in Iowa, waking her up to tell her he’s alive. 
To crouch in a bunker while bombs burst around you and realize 
for the first time that this is what it means to be an American.
To watch hundreds of American soldiers in formation 
at the Al-Faw Palace in Baghdad 
as they took the oath as new U.S. citizens. 
To fish in a canal in a boat at night with an Iraqi doctor 
who stated there was no PTSD in Iraq 
because all Iraqis have been traumatized. 
To watch Tongan Marines perform a Haka
before destroying the combat medics in volleyball. 
To play hockey with Slovakian soldiers
on a cement slab in Kandahar 
while temperatures hovered around 110 degrees. 
To buy a chess board for my son in a bazaar, 
while listening to the Afghan merchant describe his dream 
of a safer world for his children. 
To watch flag-draped caskets loaded onto a cargo plane 
on Memorial Day, 
knowing there are grieving families waiting in Dover. 
To come home but never to come home. 
To feel happiness but always colored with guilt for surviving. 
To be ordinary and live each day with memories 
of the extraordinary. 
To become emotional every time you hear the national anthem 
and gaze on a fluttering American flag.
To do penance by sitting with veterans at the VA,
listening to their stories of resilience and recovery. 
To walk through a veterans cemetery knowing each stone holds 
a sacred story of service, sacrifice and purpose. 
I never knew what it was like to be a veteran, 
until I became a veteran.