The Saddest Thing to Be

NOTE: This particular episode is focused mainly on the issue of Veterans and how they relate to the younger generation of Veterans and Active Duty personnel. If you are not a Veteran or Active Duty, you may find that it is not relevant to you. Or maybe you will. But it’s really aimed at the Veteran – and specifically Navy Submarine Veteran – community. – Producer Henri Yesterday was Women Veterans Day. Maybe you knew that, maybe not. It became a thing because it was June 12, 1948, when Congress finally enacted legislation to allow women to serve in the regular Armed Services, not just the Auxiliaries. It is NOT a holiday or even an official thing, but it’s a reminder that once upon a time, society changed. I made the mistake of making a post about it on The Sub Vet, the Facebook page I Admin, and the result was as predictable as the tides. Over the past weeks, I have noticed – as I mentioned on Bill Mick Live last week – that for whatever reasons, Veterans – and specifically Submarine Veterans – seem to have a hang up that everything isn’t exactly the way we did it two generations ago with the same societal mores which existed then. Among the things that get griped about are the uniforms, the awards, the technology and even the fact that since 2010 women are allowed to serve on US Navy Submarines. And if that’s not enough, the complaints even grow into the fact that technology has advanced. How dare it!!!! To top it all off, we Veterans are constantly complaining about the younger Vets and Active Duty folks not wanting to join our Veterans Organizations. well… why would they want to? According to us, everything they do is wrong. So we can keep shaking our fists at the sky for the next twenty to forty years and then go the way of the dinosaurs… or… and this is just an idea… maybe we could become the biggest cheerleading advocates of the kids on the pointy end of the stick?