A reader writes:
As a veteran of nearly 19 years, my advice is just don’t say anything. Not to sound rude, but I neither need nor want your thanks. I didn’t join the Navy for the accolades of strangers. I wasn’t drafted and nor was I forced or pressured to join. I knew what I was getting into when I signed up. If you find yourself at an airport and have the urge to thank a serviceman, find one in a lounge and anonymously buy them a beer or pay their lunch tab. You’ll feel good about your mitzvah and we will avoid the public accolades, as I feel most humble people would want to do, but still get that feeling that someone out there gives a shit.
Another writes:
When I got back from Afghanistan a few years back, my friend and I were walking through an airport in uniform when a guy walked up to us and said, “Thank you so much. I really appreciate your service.” My buddy, Chris, who had been in mid-sentence and was getting annoyed, frankly, by all the thanks we were receiving, replied, “Great. Why don’t you buy us a beer?” The man, stunned, was scrambling for a response when Chris said, “I guess you don’t appreciate our service that damn much.” The guy ended up buying us both beers and running off to catch his flight. “That’s one less person who’ll interrupt a soldier’s conversation,” Chris said.
Another:
As a new Airman in 1965 I remember eating out in San Antonio with a few of my platoon mates and having someone pick up the check. We never found out who it was or even knew it had been done until we tried to pay when we left. I have done the same on a few occasions since.
Another:
I’m noticing this topic springing up around the Internet in the past few months, especially on Tom Ricks’ blog. (A recent theme is the culture of entitlement that is now taking hold in the vet community as they come to see free drinks as a given.) You might be interested in my comment that Ricks reposted as a full post.
My take is that “thank you” is a poorly thought-out statement. We have gone too far in our national effort to atone for Vietnam. In concrete terms, my service in Iraq did nothing for anyone in the United States or Iraq. The only conclusion I can come to is that it encouraged not just ill will, but violent action toward Americans. Only the tiniest handful of special operators are out there killing anyone who was ever gonna hop on a plane and start laying IEDs in Times Square. The rest are killing people who probably never had to be killed.
It’s not fun to be thanked for that. It also makes it really difficult to tell the thanker what really happened and what I really think of the war. The objective part of me tries to see the innocent intention behind the words, but mostly it feels like we are avoiding a real conversation about the responsibilities of citizenship in wartime.
The Dish 