“Thank you for your service...”/ November 11, 2025, a commentary by Jack Devine

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Thank You for My Service 

“Somehow, even in today’s incessantly angry social climate, we veterans seem to hear the words “thank you for your service” more frequently than ever before. The following is reprinted from ‘The Patriot Post’ and it seems fitting to me to bring it to your attention as a lead-in to a more personal take of my own on the subject."

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“In my case, maybe I’m hearing “Thank you for your service” because I’m an old guy, often wearing a faded old Navy ball cap or T-shirt. But I think that sentiment is popping up everywhere. I’m always surprised when I hear those words, and I always appreciate them.

“Today is Veterans Day, and we’ll surely hear it a lot. One way we veterans can react is to simply accept that we earned the compliment. There are 15 million or so U.S. military veterans kicking around today, and we all donated at least a few years of our lives. We volunteered to serve, we left home, we put on the uniform, and we did what had to be done to keep this nation safe.

“But it occurs to me that the thanks should go both ways. While we veterans naturally like to receive thanks from the nation for our service, we should also be thanking the nation for the opportunity to repay, in small part, the priceless benefit of U.S. citizenship and to do our part in keeping our homeland safe.

“The grand bargain of military service is essentially this: Those who join make an unconditional commitment to endless training, 24/7 working hours, extended deployments away from home and family, and very real occupational hazards — including going to battle for our country if need be. In essence, we commit to trusting our leadership and following their orders, regardless of political views. In return, we earn the opportunity to serve the country we love and to benefit from the immeasurable life experience of service in the world’s finest armed forces.

“As I recall, leaving home at 17, three weeks out of high school, headed for the U.S. Naval Academy, I surely had patriotic thoughts about serving my country. But I was also fulfilling a lifelong dream and embarking on what I expected to be a great adventure. Looking back now as an 81-year-old, I realize that the U.S. Navy certainly held up its part of that bargain.

“In the military, that high adventure comes in a heavy stew of hard work and critical life lessons. Examples:

• Do you wonder how you would stand up to a challenge that seems utterly insurmountable? Expect that circumstance to crop up again and again — and see how much you grow on each occasion.
• Do you sense a need for order and discipline in your life? Boot camp will provide exquisite clarity on that concept.
• Strive for physical fitness? You’ll find that it’s demanded across the board, and to extraordinary levels in elite units like the Navy SEALs or Army Special Forces.
• Do you like jumping out of planes? No problem — that can be arranged.
• A need for speed? Exhilaration? Amusement park rides are OK, but for the real thing, try to work your way into Navy, Marine, or Air Force flight training, and someday you may find yourself in the cockpit of a high-performance jet. Strap in hard. And if you have difficulty overcoming your fears, imagine landing that jet on the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier on a dark night in heavy seas.
• Like the great outdoors? Wind in your face? Maybe some salt spray? Give the U.S. Coast Guard a try, famous for sending ships out to sea in weather so foul that everyone else is heading for shelter.
• In our military, you will learn what “on time” really means. In the Navy, it means being early — being late is intolerable. Need a refresher on preparedness? Accountability? Teamwork? Those are the daily diet of military life.

“If, like me, you follow politics closely and grow weary of politicians who talk about the importance of unity but keep driving us apart, you wish they could spend a few months at sea on a submarine. Being literally “all in the same boat” erases all confusion on that subject.

“Of course, the promised adventure of military service is only half of the bargain. The oath we all took was deadly serious, and we can’t sugarcoat the hard reality that military service is at times a perilous profession, certainly in wartime but also in peacetime. Inevitably, some die in the line of duty, and others suffer serious physical and emotional injuries that last a lifetime. Every single one is a tragedy.

“The price paid by those service members and their families is incalculably high. We can only admire and thank them forever for their unconditional commitment to serve, we can help their families, and we can elect leaders dedicated to keeping our nation out of war, as far as it is possible. In the outside world, the phrase “never forget” is often used casually. Veterans never forget.

“But I would also wager that nearly all veterans consider their own military service as a central life-building block. They remember the good and the bad, and they know that the life lessons of both are priceless. And for all the grumbling about the burdens and discomfort of military life, most veterans will tell you that the experience was invaluable and that they wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“Military service is essential to our national defense, and it transforms the lives of many who serve — to their lifelong benefit and also to the benefit of our country. I cannot think of a better way to jump-start adult life as a citizen of this great nation.

“God bless our nation, and God bless those who keep it safe.”

Today is the 11th of November, Veterans Day in America, and I need to say a few things about ‘heroism’, a subject that is often grossly misunderstood by too many younger individuals (looking at you, Gen-Z).

This morning, a blessedly calm Tuesday here in the armpit of Californicatia, I hitched up the grrrrl, after we had finished our daily early AM walk-ritual, donned one of my flight jackets and my battered old 5th Fighter squadron ballcap, and headed for ‘VENUS’, our local neighborhood coffeehouse.

VENUS is NOT a place where you see many steaming-hot young, single wimmin (sic). The usual crowd are unattached older wimmin, most of them retired and pushing their 80s, interspersed with a few small families with little kids and a seemingly plentiful quota of lesbian couples, whose tables are quite clearly delineated by unseen minefields and invisible signs warning “ACHTUNG: MINEN!”

Still, it’s usually peaceful enough, especially when you sit outside, since most habitues prefer sitting inside instead of grabbing a table on the small front verandah area at VENUS, al fresco.

Usually, I’m just another old guy wearing drab mufti and indistinguishable from dozens of other ‘older’ Charlies (note: a derogatory British slang term believed to have originated in Cockney Rhyming Slang. See ADDENDUM at end) one might see in a neighborhood full of retired people. On this special day, my flight jacket and cap marked me off as a veteran and my age places me squarely in the so-called ‘Cold War’ era of the late 50s and 60s. I don’t get a chance to show my pride in having once been a part of America’s Air Defense and Strategic Air Commands very often, but Veterans Day is one of several in which a little display of such fraternization with our military is perfectly acceptable.

Let me be clear at the outset that during my service time (in the mid-60s), as a young college student from the East SF Bay Area, I was distinctly ‘anti-war’ in sentiment and philosophy But I was also in love with the fast and powerful flying war machines we flew in defense of America’s air space (notably protecting the US from feared Soviet nuclear incursions and unannounced penetrations by probing Soviet strategic bombers. It was a marital matrix made in hell, of course, but I was a Berkeley boy who grew up living and breathing post-war air & space developments right after WW2 had ended and had always wanted to fly those hot silver machines I found myself so intoxicated by.

As such, I was immersed in a sweltering conflict of ideas, principles and contending attitudes about warfare and the legitimacy of war. Not a good combination of assets to show up at the recruiter’s office with, fresh out of a UCB philosophy course (and with a copy of Pasternak’s DR. ZHIVAGO stuffed into my rear pocket).

My rationale for enlisting was that as a medical person (Aerospace Medicine, Flight Surgeon’s Office), I wasn’t a combatant per se, but rather a semi-pacifist, pseudo-anti-war guy whose job was merely to support the active combatants...and not to kill people.  Besides, Uncle Lyndon had just yanked (no pun intended) all student deferments, regardless of GPA, as the war began to heat up and boil over unexpectedly. I wasn’t at all keen on being handed an M-16 and told to walk point, like so many of my friends had been in the Army. Most of them quickly became casualties, including Terry Ogami, a Japanese-American schoolmate of mine who had ironically been one of the first to volunteer to go stave off the North Viets, and was fatally injured, soon after he was in country. 

Us humming beans are great rationalisers, of course; it’s one of our most vexing and exasperating tendencies. This, then, was my personal rationalization to excuse hanging around those beautiful (if deadly) silver birds we daily flew out of my Air Force base, that I loved so much. But then, I’ve always been a complex study in personal contrasts and philosophical contradictions most of my life. My service time was no exception.

So today, almost 60 years since I was active-duty Air Force, I look back on my service years with a mix of frustration, pride and nostalgia, all of which help tempered my callow years of youthfulness considerably. But I also count the experience as one of the peak moments of my cisgendered XY life.

I was pretty naïve and immature when I first went in, but I must admit that even though the US Air Force was not anywhere as innately gung-ho as say, the US Marine Corps, mild as it was, my service time definitely helped me “grow-up” considerably...and as fast as the planes we flew. For that and the fact that I didn’t end up as rice fertilizer in a soggy paddy, with a neat little AK-47 hole in my forehead, I am eternally thankful. As a kid without a father since age 4, what the Boy Scouts didn’t manage to shoehorn into me, the US Air Force did. And best of all, I managed to survive the Vietnam meat-grinder that wasted over fifty thousands of my contemporaries, back then.

In a certain context, all military men are heroes; some are far more heroic than others, of course (George Orwell might have been tempted to put it, “All soldiers are heroes, but some are more heroic than others.”). In today’s America, especially among our younger generations who weren’t exposed to warfare and combat perils and who in fact may not have ever served at all, there seems to be a radical misunderstanding of what the term ‘Hero’ is actually all about. Watching mainstream media news (which is almost entirely of a leftist liberal/progressive nature), it’s a common practice for glib media broadcasters to label every animate thing that moves a ‘hero’, these days on the 5’oclock news. Humane Society rescuers are ‘heroes’, ditto for fire fighters and policemen...a not very smart little kid in school managed to graduate and HE’S a hero, etc., etc. You name it and he/she/it is heroic. In fact, our local public library (run by a hornet’s nest of progressive liberal females) are so misinformed about the true nature of ‘heroism’ that they keep their library building’s American flag at half-staff practically every day, rain or shine. I’ve even heard of illegal immigrants who died while being apprehended honored as ‘heroic.’ I mean, give me a break!

But the miraculous personal ‘survival story’ of mine (I wasn’t killed) leads me to comment on the sad state of what a typical contemporary hero is in the minds of too many of our simpler masses. To many younger wimmin, “hero” conjures the image of a Jean-Claude van Damme (Jean-Claude Camille François van Varenberg), or a Jason Statham, or a Sly Stallone, Auh-nuld Schwartzenegger or some other steroid-fueled beefcake stud; hence the irrational desire of almost all our young males to frantically buff themselves up to the point of absurdity. Even our local news weather men present like they’ve just gotten out of the gym, with biceps and deltoids that look like they’re straight from Hollywood special effects (or from 10 years spent in a state penitentiary, LoL).

These are not ‘heroes’, folks, because heroism didn’t originate in a Douglas Fairbanks film (besides, he was gay; so was Randolph Scott, Rock Hudson and about half of any group of Hollywood stars you can think of), contrary to the common mind’s take that prevails today.

No one intends deliberately or sets out purposefully to be “heroic.” ‘Heroism’ is something that descends like a bomb upon an ordinary guy (or gal) without warning, prompting an automatic response to self-preserve (or to preserve one’s squad buddies). One doesn’t become a hero in the military with even the slightest forethought. True heroism boils down to following one’s ‘fight-or-flight’ adrenergic impulses. Simply and completely. In conveying this mistaken, simplified characterisation of heroism that so prevails these days, Hollywood has managed to yet again distort reality. Most younger people will never get that straightened out in their own minds until they end up as a poster-person on a Wounded Warriors Project advertisement. And by then, of course, it’s far too late for them. Like it or not, they have become rote process “Thank-you-for-your-service” heroes.

This morning, as I was leaving the coffeehouse, I caught several hard, cold glares from some of our younger females there (“younger” being a relative term there). Obviously leftist liberal feminist progressives (and probably ‘cat mamas’, also), who have swallowed all the radical leftist ideological claptrap that all military people (and police) are “Nazis.” They probably thought my flight jacket was an SS uniform!

Unsurprisingly, I also garnered a couple of “Thank-you-for-your-service!” rote responses from several older people who have been socialised to parrot this phrase, whenever someone with a military association heaves into sight.

Frankly, such reflexive sentiments leave me cold and are only really meaningful when there’s some real conviction and sincerity behind the utterance (such as in Ukraine, when a Ukrainian Army soldier passes a group of civilians who are truly grateful for the sacrifices being made by their soldiers). Not when a slick commercial made by ‘Wounded Warriors Project’ shill Chance Whatsiname (the guy w/the cowboy hat) tells you to do this automatically. I myself can do without such fabricated sentiments, because as we all know, talk is cheaper than dirt. Especially these days.

But that’s all superfluous confabulation for the most part and I’m in a grouchy mood, anyway.

Outside, there’s not even the faintest whisper of a breeze. The flag I put out this morning is absolutely flutterless...as if it too is tired to death of all the social chaos that is currently ripping America’s Democratic traditions to shreds.

Next time, you see a veteran, don’t do the ‘thank-you-for-your-service’ schtick. Just smile and acknowledge the presence of another weary fellow traveler who has paid his dues on the confused and frustrating path of life we all must share...amicably.

“The British slang term ‘Charlie’ or ‘Charley,’ meaning a foolish, awkward person or dweeb, is widely believed to originate from Cockney Rhyming Slang.

The term is thought to be an abbreviation of an older, much ruder Cockney Rhyming Slang phrase:

• Charlie Hunt (or sometimes Charlie Smirke) = Cunt (an extremely vulgar term for a foolish or despicable person).

“In Cockney Rhyming Slang, a phrase is used to replace a word it rhymes with. Over time, the rhyming word itself is often dropped, leaving the non-rhyming part (in this case, ‘Charlie’) to stand in for the original rhymed word.

• Another related slang term, Berk (meaning idiot/fool), has a similar origin, deriving from Berkshire Hunt, which rhymes with "cunt." This makes ‘Charlie’ the equivalent of calling someone a ‘Berk.’
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  "While the slang likely pre-dates it, the word's use was massively popularized in the UK by the BBC radio comedy show The Goon Show (1951–1960). The show's writers, such as Spike Milligan, were aware of the word's vulgar rhyming slang origin. They deliberately used "Charlie" (and "Berk") liberally in their scripts, knowing that the BBC heads and censors were unaware of the profane root of the term. This allowed them to inject mild but subversive insults into the show without reprimand.

• The Goon Show's Influence: The Goon Show was hugely popular in 1950s Britain, with character voices and catchphrases quickly becoming part of the vernacular. Its use of "Charlie" as a recurring term for a sucker, fool, or incompetent person cemented its non-vulgar meaning into the mainstream British lexicon.

“In summary, the slang term for a dweeb (‘Charlie’) comes from a much older, vulgar piece of rhyming slang, but it was its adoption by the highly influential and absurd humor of The Goon Show on 1950s radio that brought it into widespread popular use across the United Kingdom.”

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PS: The image that accompanies this piece is a photograph taken by my Da in 1918, who was in charge of the Camp Gordon Norcross Rifle Range in Georgia. It shows some of Da's troops celebrating the official announcement of the Armistice. Da was tasked with training soldiers in marksmanship who were about to be sent over to join General Pershing's AEF forces; half of his soldiers were white, the other half black, and as the son of an Irish immigrant, he was quite empathetic to the plight of blacks back then, his own family in County Meath having suffered considerably from British rule of Ireland. News reports and clippings I have from the local Georgia newspapers indicate that Da was well regarded as a fair and equitable commander by all his troops, black and white alike...a fitting testiment to his fair-mindedness and basic humanity.