November 15th, 2017
(the following letter was posted in the Capital Times)
Dear Editor: My father is a vet. He served in the Navy during the Korean War time frame. On Friday I went to visit him at his nursing home. The people running the nursing home had a Veterans Day presentation for all the residents. The ceremony was simultaneously corny and deeply moving. It made me think.
I am also a veteran. I was an Army helicopter pilot during the 1980s. My oldest son joined the Army and fought in Iraq in 2011.
Veterans Day made me wonder about America and our wars. Currently, we are fighting in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Niger, and God only knows where else. These wars seem endless. We have been in Afghanistan for 16 years already. An entire generation is growing up in time of war, but that generation seems totally unaware of the fact. We have been at it so long that people don’t even notice that we are at war. The fighting overseas is just background noise. Nobody cares, except for those who personally know somebody who has been involved in the wars. Our family has three generations of veterans. If my son has children, will they become veterans too?
Frank is Emptiness 