Tag: veterans

Over and Over Again

August 8th, 2026

Yesterday morning, we drove to a jobsite in Texas where are oldest son, Hans, was pumping concrete. He operates a huge pump truck. It has eighteen wheels, weighs about 185K lbs., and has a 57-meter boom on it. He had been working at the site since 2:00 AM to pump a 600-yard concrete slab for a new hay barn. Karin, Asher, and I got there at 8:30, and his crew wasn’t even close to be finished with the job. Hans had asked us to come to the site to see what he does for a living. He seldom does jobs so close to home. It’s nothing for him to pump concrete as far away as Dallas, or Houston, or Port Arthur. Since yesterday’s job was only about ten miles from our hotel in Madisonville, he figured it was a rare chance to see him in action.

We did not actually go into the jobsite. If you aren’t wearing a hard hat, you shouldn’t be there. We could see Hans in the distance. He is instantly recognizable even at 100 yards away. He was walking around slowly and with a slight sag in his shoulders. He waved once at us and then went back to work. He looked tired, extremely tired. I can identify with that.

I worked as a supervisor on the dock at a trucking company. For about twenty years, I worked third (graveyard) shift. During many of those years, my wife and I had small children at home, which meant that I was always sleep deprived. Like Hans, I tried to sleep before my shift started, but that seldom worked. I was dead tired and wound tight simultaneously. I often self-medicated to function, but that was unhealthy for me and my family. Even when I was physically at home, I wasn’t really there. However, I was the sole breadwinner in the family, and we needed the money that I earned.

Hans is in a remarkably similar situation. He doesn’t even have the luxury of having a set start time for work. He gets called by dispatch a few hours before his job is set to begin. He sleeps at random times, and he sleeps poorly. He is taking care of his family financially, but there are significant downsides to his line of work. He honestly loves pumping concrete, and he is good at his job. It is the erratic schedule that is slowly killing him.

When I was working on the loading dock, I was operating in a brutal environment. The temperatures on the dock were exactly the same as the temps outside. It was hot in summer and intensely cold in winter. My job required me to function under severe time constraints. I had to think on my feet. It was also literally dangerous on the dock. I had my right leg crushed by a forklift in 2009.

Hans’ working conditions are not much different. He works in extreme heat. His work is hazardous and physically demanding. His job is stressful. He has to get his job done while following a rigorous schedule. Everything is time sensitive.

I wonder why Hans and I have followed such similar career paths. It might be just bad karma. However, I think part of the problem is that we are both veterans. We have traits that draw us to work that, quite honestly, kind of sucks.

I will make some gross generalizations here. Veterans tend to be mission oriented. We just want to get the job done. We like unambiguous instructions and goals. Give us a clear set of orders and set us loose. We are used to working in difficult environments under pressure. We expect things to go sideways and we plan accordingly. We can be part of a team, but we prefer to work alone. We have limited social skills.

So, where do we wind up? Hans and I found work with companies that needed people who could work under stress and still get the job done. I really wish that Hans had found a different path, but he didn’t. The cycle just keeps repeating.

Old Vet

August 7th, 2026

Breakfast at the Best Western isn’t bad, but it’s nothing to brag about either. The scrambled eggs remind me of those served in any Army mess hall. The only interesting thing about breakfast is the waffle iron. It bakes waffles in the shape of the state of Texas. I made one of those for our grandson, Asher. He asked me to fill every divot in the waffle with syrup, and then he asked me where on this edible map of Texas we were staying.

After I finished serving Asher his waffle, an old man shuffled past me to make his own breakfast. I’m an old man, but this guy was much further along in years than me. He wore a tie-dyed t-shirt and shorts. He had cloth coverings over parts of his arms and legs. He had some dark bruises on the backs of his hands. He wore his hair in a ponytail, and he had wire rim glasses. He had a beard that had long ago gone white. He wore a baseball cap that had said “3rd Infantry Division” on it. That intrigued me.

I was tempted to tell him, “Thank you for your service”, but I hate that expression. It means almost nothing. It is one of those phrases that a person says when they don’t know what else to say.

Instead, I asked him, “Where were you stationed?”

He didn’t understand me at first, but then he told me that he had been deployed to Germany. He worked in the armory at Kitzingen in Bavaria. He had been in the Army in Europe from 1965 to 68. He never went to Vietnam. I tried to get a word in edgewise, but the man wanted to tell his story, so I listened. He told me in his slow Texan drawl more than I ever wanted to know, but it gave him pleasure to do so. I have to admit that I sometimes I do the same thing.

The old guy emphasized that being stationed in Germany gave him the opportunity to go places he would not have otherwise ever been able to see: France, Spain, England. He told me about arriving by train in some Austrian town during winter and getting a sleigh ride from the Bahnhof over snow-covered roads to wherever he was staying.

As I ate breakfast with Asher and my wife, I thought about the old guy at the next table. Why does a person wear a cap that broadcasts that they served in the military? The answer is probably because they want to talk about it. They want somebody to notice them and then maybe, just maybe, listen to their story. Here is an 83-year-old man who apparently considers his three years in the Army to be a crucial period of his life. That’s interesting. Obviously, this old Texan did many other things in his long life, but he wanted the world to know that he was a veteran. His time in the service must have been a peak experience in an otherwise flat and humdrum life.

The man made me think about our oldest son. We are visiting him and his family in Texas. He also likes to wear a cap that indicates his time in the Army. He went to Iraq. My son’s experience was traumatic, but still essential to his identity. For my son and for this elderly gentleman, the time in the military was fundamentally different from everything else.

As we got ready to leave the dining room, my wife went up to the man to tell him that she was raised in Germany in a little town n ot too far from Kitzingen. The old guy looked up from his waffle and noticed Asher. He smiled at him and said,

“I wish I had even a bit of that boy’s energy. I can’t even remember being that young.”

Then he wished us all a good day. He was still wearing his cap.

Don Timmerman

July 26th, 2026

Don Timmerman died of cancer on July 19th. He spent almost all of his adult life advocating for peace and justice. I am tempted to say that he was “fighting” for those causes, but I’m not sure if that word is appropriate to describe a man who was an absolute pacifist. Based on his understanding of the Gospels, especially the Beatitudes, Don rejected all wars, and by extension all aspects of the military. He was an elder and leader at the Casa Maria Catholic Worker House in Milwaukee, WI. He posted a monthly newsletter, Casa Cry, in which he consistently railed against the U.S. military/industrial complex and the violence and suffering it produces. He used his jeremiads to stir the consciences of those people who bothered to peruse his essays, and he encouraged them to protest against the evils of war. Unfortunately, I suspect that most if not all his readers already agreed with most of his views. He was preaching to the choir.

I did not know Don well. I can’t remember how I met him. Nor can I remember the last time I spoke to him. Up until the time that my wife and I became guardians and fulltime caregivers for our little grandson, Asher, I was often involved in protests of one sort or another. I would see him at these demonstrations. It was his calling to bear witness. In that sense, Don was a prophet, like those in the Hebrew scriptures. If he saw injustice, he had to say something, or at least silently show his opposition to it. He had to be there.

It seems odd that I ever met him at all. Our paths in life were radically different. Don trained to be missionary priest in Tanzania. He was at one time a translator for Mother Teresa. He became deeply involved with the Catholic Worker movement. He repeatedly participated in antiwar protests and was often arrested for civil disobedience. He was passionate about living as a disciple of Christ.

I, on the other hand, graduated from West Point and I spent six years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. I served in a helicopter unit in West Germany during the early 1980’s. My oldest son, Hans, enlisted in the Army in 2009. He went to war in Iraq. He came back damaged.

Don frequently demonstrated against ROTC at Marquette University in Milwaukee. I went there with him once. It was a lonely vigil. I think he was often all alone when he protested, but he felt that it was duty to be there. Don believed that it was wrong for a Catholic school to support ROTC. The administration at Marquette disagreed with him. I stood with him holding a sign to protest the training of military officers at Marquette. At one point, a young, fresh-faced ROTC cadet walked past us nervously. He glanced at me and hurried away. When I looked at the cadet, I saw me, an earlier version of myself. That shook me. I understood why this young man was wearing a uniform and doing what he was doing. I firmly believe that Don did not understand. He saw it all in terms of right and wrong, black and white. ROTC was wrong. Period.

The times when I was demonstrating with Don were educational for me. They also made me feel uneasy. It should be noted that my wife and I did absolutely everything we could to keep Hans out the wars. We used advice from the Quakers to show him as a conscientious objector in the system when he had to sign up for the Selective Service. The irony was that Hans enlisted anyway, and for all the same reasons that I had when I joined up fifty years ago. Hans and I were, and in a way still are, part of the system that Don so intensely opposed. We’re vets and he never was.

Back on May 1st of this year, I posted an essay on my blog, “It’s Still about Iran”. Read it if you want. Don did, and he sent a remarkably long response to what I wrote. I attempted in my article to describe what a disaster the current war against Iran is. I did not write the essay solely for pacifist readers. Actually, this article was also posted on a veteran’s website, The Havok Journal. I did not use moral arguments against the war. Don had always used moral persuasion, with limited success. I tried mostly to explain why the war was so stupid. Thomas Merton once said that a man would rather be considered clever than good. I tried to appeal to a person’s intellect more than to their conscience.

Don sent me a variation of his usual diatribe against war. He apparently assumed that I support war in general, and that I only opposed to this current fiasco. In his response, his last words to me were:

“You have chosen the state over Christ.”—Don Timmerman and Casa Maria C.W. community

That stung.

The fact that is that I agree with almost all that he said. One thing I learned from my time with Don was that people seldom listen to moral exhortations. Prophets are usually ignored, or worse. Maybe I have chosen the State over Christ. Or maybe I see more nuances than Don did. I don’t know about that. All I know is that my son and I have suffered from the effects of war. I think I hate war as much as Don did, and I may have more reason to do so.

I wrote back to Don, and I asked him not to judge me.

He replied, “Of course.”

Don was a good man. I admire his courage and his dedication. He lived his faith.

I just wish we had known each other better. I wish we had understood each other better.

Not Home for the Holidays

November 30th, 2025

“All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?” – from “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles

Three of us sat at the dining room table for Thanksgiving dinner: Karin, Asher, and me. Our holiday meal was simple. We had chicken, a green bean casserole, zucchini fries, and a yogurt dessert that Karin had dreamed up. I think Asher, our nearly five-year-old grandson, actually ate mac and cheese, but at least he ate with us. Karin and I have three children. None of them were able to be with us on Thanksgiving. Our tiny gathering in no way resembled the Normal Rockwell painting from The Saturday Evening Post in 1943. I suspect that almost no Thanksgiving dinners look like what Rockwell idealized.

Thanksgiving is a strange beast. It is officially a secular event with all the trappings of a religious holiday. It commemorates the first Thanksgiving in 1621 when Pilgrim colonists in Massachusetts shared a feast with members of the Wampanoag tribe. The original gathering has a symbolic and mythical status. The current holiday is supposed to be an occasion for people to share food with others and express gratitude for what they have. It is also an opportunity to overeat, binge-watch TV, and then buy unnecessary consumer goods the following day. Thanksgiving is a day full of contradictions. As such, it is profoundly American.

Karin and I said a Christian prayer before we ate our meal with Asher. Then we recited a Japanese Buddhist verse that we learned from our friends, Senji and Gilberto, long ago. We chanted “Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo” three times, and then we joined hands with Asher and said, “Froelich heisst beim Abendessen: Guten Appatit!” (a German phrase that Karin learned as a child that roughly translates to: “Happy means at dinner ‘have a good appetite'”.

Years ago, before Asher entered our lives, I used to go with a small group of people from the American Legion to visit patients in the psych ward at the local VA hospital. We went there every Tuesday evening for a couple hours to spend time with the vets. Around the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, the ward was packed full of patients. Holidays that emphasized being with family and friends were particularly painful for veterans who had no loved ones. The loneliness that these vets could somehow keep in check during most of the year overwhelmed them, and they wound up in a hospital ward loaded up with strangers who felt equally forgotten. I’m glad that I had the chance to spend a few hours with these men and women. We shared our common humanity for a little while, and I learned things from them.

Our culture and our technology encourage us to remain isolated. We need to be physically together at least once in a while. I give thanks for Asher and Karin for being in my life every day. I look forward to being with others too.

Illegal Orders

August 19th, 2025

I recently read an article in Military.com titled “4 Out of 5 US Troops Surveyed Understand the Duty to Disobey Illegal Orders”. In the essay, the authors state,

“Our poll, fielded between June 13 and June 30, 2025, shows that service members understand these rules. Of the 818 active-duty troops we surveyed, just 9% stated that they would ‘obey any order.’ Only 9% ‘didn’t know,’ and only 2% had ‘no comment.’ “

I have to mention here that the article and possibly the poll itself have a partisan slant. The authors are not fans of Donald Trump. Even so, the essay and the results of the poll are interesting to me.

I would have preferred to read that 100% of active-duty troops understand how to recognize an illegal order and know when to disobey such an order. However, 80% sounds realistic. Actually, I find that number to be encouraging.

I entered West Point as a new cadet in July of 1976. That was a long time ago. I don’t remember much of my first day at USMA. Most of it is a blur. However, I can distinctly remember when I stood on the Plain to take the oath to defend the U.S. Constitution. Did I really understand at that time what I was promising to do? No, but I figured it out as time went on and I realize how life-changing that oath really was and still is.

I suspect that most veterans can remember when they officially became service members. It’s hard to overstate how important that moment was. The oath that we took stands in stark contrast to the oath that German soldiers took in WWII. Those men (which probably including my father-in-law) swore allegiance to the person of Adolf Hitler. We did not swear allegiance to a president. We did not swear allegiance to a political party. We did not swear to protect a religion or a particular ethnic group. An American service member swears allegiance to the core document of our republic. In effect, we took an oath to defend a noble idea.

What does it mean to defend the Constitution? That’s where it gets hard. We don’t always get into situations where the line between right and wrong is crystal clear. Sometimes, we are forced to choose the lesser evil. Even in peacetime, a soldier may face an order that is illegal and/or immoral. My oldest son fought in Iraq, and he often found himself in extremely violent circumstances where the decisions had to made immediately without time for thoughtful consideration of the consequences. I am pretty sure that at those times he seldom thought about the Constitution. He thought about survival.

Can we expect service members to always fulfill their oaths? Probably not. However, it makes me hopeful knowing that the vast majority of them understand what they promised to do.

A Hero of War

August 3rd, 2025

He said “Son, have you seen the world?
Well, what would you say if I said that you could?
“Just carry this gun, you’ll even get paid”
I said “That sounds pretty good”

Black leather boots
Spit-shined so bright
They cut off my hair but it looked alright
We marched and we sang
We all became friends
As we learned how to fight

A hero of war
Yeah, that’s what I’ll be
And when I come home
They’ll be damn proud of me
I’ll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
‘Cause it’s a flag that I love
And a flag that I trust

I kicked in the door
I yelled my commands
The children, they cried
But I got my man
We took him away
A bag over his face
From his family and his friends

They took off his clothes
They pissed in his hands
I told them to stop
But then I joined in
We beat him with guns
And batons not just once
But again and again

A hero of war
Yeah that’s what I’ll be
And when I come home
They’ll be damn proud of me
I’ll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
‘Cause it’s a flag that I love
And a flag that I trust

She walked through bullets and haze
I asked her to stop
I begged her to stay
But she pressed on
So I lifted my gun
And I fired away

And the shells jumped through the smoke
And into the sand
That the blood now had soaked
She collapsed with a flag in her hand
A flag white as snow

A hero of war
Is that what they see
Just medals and scars
So damn proud of me
And I brought home that flag
Now it gathers dust
But it’s a flag that I love
It’s the only flag I trust

He said, “Son, have you seen the world?
Well what would you say, if I said that you could?”

Lyrics to Hero of War from the band, “Rise Against”. Released in 2008.

I just played that track again on the stereo after not listening to it for a long time. I don’t particularly like the song, even though it is well done. I guess it’s because it’s just too accurate and it cuts too close to the bone. Hearing it makes my heart hurt. It really does.

I can’t listen to the lyrics without thinking about my oldest son, Hans. Hans enlisted in the Army in 2009. He knew when he enlisted that he was going to be deployed either to Iraq or Afghanistan. That was guaranteed. My wife and I did not want him to go to war, even though I am a veteran myself, or especially because I am a veteran. He joined anyway. Hans went to Iraq in 2011.

Hans did lots of things in Iraq. He went on patrols. He cleared buildings. He kicked in doors. He got wounded. He killed people. He came back different.

Hans texted a few weeks ago about his war. He said, “I’m actually grateful for my army experience.” He told me that it made him grow up in a hurry and it taught him what was important in life. I’m sure that’s true, but at what cost?

I’ve written numerous essays on this blog about Hans and things that happened to him in the Army. A few of his stories are funny, but most of them are not. The accounts of his experiences in Iraq are harrowing, at least they are to me. There are things that a father probably does not need to hear, although I am grateful that Hans trusted me enough to tell me.

If you’re curious, you can look up my essays about his war. It’s all here in the blog.

Hans was a hero of war, whatever that means.