I struggle with the cognitive dissonance with it.

I mean by struggle that I vacillate between “no standing military!” versus “the VA should be funded to infinity and beyond”. I struggle to think about the actions of Americans in southeast Asia and Vietnam versus loving my family members that were there doing some things that they can’t talk about to anyone because war never changes.

I don’t want to see another family member broken by war. And then I’ve got family that thinks war is what we need.

That makes it harder to appreciate the day we set aside for honor and sacrifice of veterans of wars. I had never wished any of them to go, and I still believe we need all of those people here at home.

But what I try to use is compassion and sensitivity to imagine how scared I would be to be shot at, bombed, stalked by another human with a gun. The misery of digging holes in the snow with a shorthanded shovel hungry and cold, and losing those that one relies upon over and over again.

None of that makes any sense to me. If I was alone dying bleeding out in a muddy field, gutshot, I would call for my mom not for a holiday.

So I struggle with it.