Please Don’t Thank Me for My Service

"a reflexive offering"

I was never under fire when I was in the reserves, or overseas, but it angers me anyway when people thank me for my service because it feels like "my bad".

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=My+bad

"A way of admitting a mistake, and apologizing for that mistake, without actually apologizing."

aka something like "sorry for sending you there to die for nothing, but F you I said thanks so that makes us even" Its especially biting when someone I know to be a neocon tries to thank me. No, more like F you.

You can always spot these vets at airports. They are the ones who aren't rushing to the gate for pre-boarding.

I knew one at school (2006) who really hated being thanked because he really didn't feel he was doing anything for his country. He had a sick kid. His only reason for serving in the army was his daughter's medical care. He saw the thanks, more specifically accepting the thanks, as a sort of lie. For him it was a job, a very good job. He openly admitted to being a mercenary. I think that actually protected him from some of doublethink: he was under no illusions about why he was fighting.

I also met a Vietnam vet once who stayed away from any vet activities. He wasn't damaged. As a pilot he enjoyed the war and hated how everyone made assumptions about his experiences. He hadn't been shot down, or even shot at. Accepting the empty "thanks" felt like validating misconceptions.

Ok, so what do you suggest that people that haven't experienced the exact same thing as you say instead? We are simply human beings and we all have different moments in this thing we call "life". You chose to go and spend those by killing people in a specific place on this planet for some sort of cause you believe in, while I do other things with my life in other places of this planet. We end up having different lives, with different ways of looking at things, because we are ultimately shaped differently.

Say I'm a person who doesn't know how to respond to you telling me you went to war. It might even be something that makes me unsure of how I feel about you. Can you not let me be human like that? Am I really that bad for just reacting? I have to think exactly what you are thinking and reacting in the way you would prefer?

It's very simple. Since I didn't go to war, I don't understand you. I don't understand your experiences, I don't understand why you did it, what it means to me and I don't understand how you feel about me not going. I don't understand it, so like the unknowing primate I am, I just repeat what everyone else is doing, because that must be correct, right? So I say 'Thank you' and let the awkward elephant into the room.

I think the crux of the issue is that, since about WWII, all the wars this country has been involved with were wars of choice, not of necessity. It makes sense to thank a World War II veteran for their service because, if it wasn't for their service, we would all be speaking Japanese. With an Iraq veteran, what exactly are you thanking them for? That war didn't really accomplish anything for the people back home, except maybe stabilize oil prices.

Is this just a US thing? I wasn't aware of this being a thing in the UK for example.

To the contrary, they are treated with respect as professional soldiers doing the job they signed up, and are paid to do.

Can anyone else pitch in with relation to their own countries?

Perhaps the best thanks we can give for future soldiers is to be wary again when politicians drum up another foreign war.