By Rick Van Arnam
As delivered to the Norwich University Corps of Cadets, Norwich University, Northfield, Vermont on November 11, 2011
Good Afternoon.
11 | 11 | 11. Today is a calendar oddity – full of buzz for how it rolls off the tongue, but yet holds patriotic meaning because it is Veterans Day.
So I’ve given a lot of thought to what I can say or share that will compliment the importance of this day its and its specialness as 11 | 11 | 11. My thoughts are mostly crafted for all of our students, and prospective students, those in ranks before us and those listening from wherever they may stand. Additionally, I have an observation for our Vietnam era veterans that may take history a bit longer to verify, but is an observation about which I feel strongly and have felt personally.
In the late morning of October 25, 1983, in the fall of my senior year at Norwich, I recall walking toward Harmon Hall chatting with my classmates, likely to grab a cup of coffee between classes in The Mill; maybe some of you did the same thing this morning. On that day, the US deployed troops to the island of Grenada in overwhelming numbers. It was the first use of combat troops since Vietnam and as a 21-year old, soon to-be-commissioned Infantry officer my classmates and I were eager to be a part of something that we saw as exciting. From listening to cadets in White Chapel who attended last month’s Student Government Association Open Forum, especially those who remained long after the forum ended, I know many of you feel the same way. I believe that this feeling stems from a desire to do like our fathers and grandfathers did – to serve our country in uniform. There is perhaps no more honorable path than this: to serve something much greater than ourselves that was conceived before we were and that will endure far after we are gone. It is this instinct and desire, the DNA that engineers our American character that we honor today.
This DNA is the currency that endows forever the greatest sentence in our Nation’s founding documents. ‘That we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It is from this sentence that veterans have always had a purpose and mission.
So at the time of the Grenada invasion, which some called an on-the-spot correction due its short duration, many of my classmates felt that we had missed our chance – not to serve, but to serve in combat. Our military strength and technology, set in motion in many ways by President John F. Kennedy’s challenge in the early 1960’s to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the world that was to become more peaceful with the end of the Cold War had actually become more dangerous. Fast forward twenty-seven years and our class, the Norwich Class of 1984, has seen its appetite for excitement diminish giving way to a sense of humility. Where once we searched for Soviet tanks and submarines, we now search for needles in haystacks in remote regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and in places like Yemen. And today’s veterans have proven skilled in this craft. We have witnessed in the last generation a decrease in threat from large standing armies and nation-states, but an increase in what Thomas Freidman has termed “super-powered individuals” who can self-detonate wearing a suicide vest while shaking hands with the Chief of Police in Konduz Province, Afghanistan or send a text message claiming responsibility following an attack on a forward operating base (FOB) in the Tajik province of Panshir, Afghanistan. In both instances, you can read about these events on an iPad in lower Manhattan, just a few blocks from where the twin towers once stood, before the United States Government can issue a statement….you get my point. The world today is dangerous. So those who serve, and all of those who support those who serve and our civilian partners in working groups world-wide, need to be world class thinker more than ever.
That pursuit – to become a world-class thinker – I think not only honors what veterans before us have sacrificed to enable, but is the best response to a globalizing world that on some days seems to hold near equal parts opportunity and danger.
This need for smart people, for thinkers, who serve is not new. A Spartan King, quoted by the 5th Century Historian Thucydides, said, “The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”
When I read this quote, that appears in a new book written by Karl Marlantes, I thought is appropriate to share with you – and challenge you – our Veterans of today and tomorrow – to spend equal amounts of time both honing military skills and exercising critical thinking and speaking skills wrapped in a genuine desire to understand better those who do not understand freedom’s purpose.
Imagine that you, in the year 2038, twenty-seven years after your commissioning, speak at this parade. What will you say? 11 | 11 | 2038 – what will veterans of your generation have done, for you will certainly be asked to do much, and how will you have done it? My sense is that you will reach the same conclusion and chosen the same strategy that has emerged over the past decade. You will equally mix a warrior ethos with a thinker ethos. You will evolve from Norwich’s student-leader attraction to a transformed citizen-soldier able to think even better than you can fight.
As we close with darkness winning the day, I feel compelled to tip my cover to the Vietnam vets reflecting on the collision of coincidence that impacts veterans from any era. No matter the era in which a Veteran came of age, it is important to remember that no Veteran, from the beginning of time, was able to select when he or she was born. If you were born in 1923, for example, you likely served in WWII and became part of whom Tom Brokaw termed “The Greatest Generation” and your legacy has been secure for decades. But if you were born between the end of WWII and the start of the Korean War, you may have been drafted (or volunteered) to fight in the Vietnam. A war that was not popular, your legacy, despite an amazing effort, remains in the balance. Not because of the individual effort, but because of the disappointing geo-political outcome.
Until 9/11….because I think the legacy that is today taking shape for those who served in Vietnam, is that because of how they were treated upon their return, America has realized that never again should an American soldier feel unsupported while deployed or unappreciated upon return.
So when you come off the plane in Bangor, Maine, whether going to or coming from Iraq or Afghanistan, the handshake and thank you that you receive from a veteran who may not have received either, will move you. It is what makes this country great. And it will make you think about those older veterans – modestly dressed, their fittest days behind them and likely with other things that they could do at home – and you will think about their service and sacrifice to this country…..and you will be humbled.
To those from that era and who are within earshot today – thank you for serving under less than ideal conditions (at home and abroad) – and thank you for recognizing today’s veterans upon our return – from the programming in place to help veterans persevere through The Long War – to every care package sent, cup of coffee purchased or handshake rendered.
Thank you, God Bless and good evening.
RVA
References
Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism, by Thomas L. Friedman, Anchor Publishing, Copyright 2003
What it is like to go to War, by Karl Marlentes, Atlantic Monthly Press, Copyright 2011
