Aerial View was WFMU’s first regularly-scheduled phone-in talk show. Hosted by Chris T. and on the air since 1989, the show features topical conversation, interviews and many trips down the rabbit hole. Until further notice, Aerial View is only available as a podcast, available every Tuesday morning. Subscribe to the newsletter “See You Next Tuesday!” and find tons of archives at aerialview.me. (Visit homepage.)

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November 11, 2014: Lay Down Your Arms
Today is Veterans Day... my thanks to all of you who served.

That Marine pictured above is my Uncle Bob - Robert DeBono (RIP) - from whom I get my middle name. I had no idea he was a former (you're never an "ex") Marine until I was scanning stereo slides taken by my Aunt Isabel (RIP) ten years ago and saw him in his service uniform. He hadn't ever mentioned his time in the military, like many of his generation. Unless it was to be a career, those men and women went back into civilian life and put it all behind them, rarely speaking about their experience unless in the company of comrades. Many who saw combat suffered silently from what was originally called "shell shock" until the euphemisms took over (George Carlin dissects it for you here). Some of them took advantage of the G.I. Bill and went to college or bought a house or started a business with help from a grateful nation.

After the debacle of Vietnam, joining the military voluntarily in the U.S. fell out of favor. Though the Selective Service System requiring males of a certain age range to sign up for a possible draft had been around since 1917, by 1973 the all-volunteer armed forces came into being. By 1975 the registration requirement was dropped.

The year I turned eighteen - 1980 - President Carter re-established Selective Service registration in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I went down to my local post office and registered but was never "called up". Maybe it was the flood of anti-war Vietnam-based films I'd seen by 1980 - Heroes, The Boys In Company C, Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Go Tell The Spartans - but I also had absolutely no desire to volunteer. These movies all said the same thing "Those who didn't come home in a bag either went mad or were missing some part of themselves."

The idea of serving a country that treated young men (and, later, women) as nothing more than cannon fodder was appalling to me. Never mind my strong anti-authority streak, there was also plenty of agitprop on vinyl to convince me the military was not a choice for a nascent punk rocker like me.

I didn't know I was one of the lucky ones, someone from a blue-collar background who had options, who could choose not to join up. For many Americans of a certain economic background, a career in the military was the only path out of crushing poverty to a better life... if you weren't destroyed along the way.

I was lucky. In all the ensuing years, through all the conflicts in which U.S. troops served, I never got that notice in the mail. When I was too old to have to worry, along came 9/11, after which many young men and women signed up and were shipped off to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We all know how that turned out.

I've heard it said the best way to "Support Our Troops" is to not send them into harm's way for indeterminate goals. Since World War II our record with that has been abysmal, with no end is in sight. The only thing worse is our approach to our veterans. Watching the piece about the new head of the Veterans Administration on 60 Minutes this past Sunday I was struck by a number of things - they need 28,000 doctors and nurses just to get up to speed, for instance - but especially by the new director Bob McDonald's appeal for 2,5000 shrinks. Military suicide is all too common. Members of the military kill themselves at double and sometimes triple the rates of the civilian population. The latest figures show 22 vets and 1 active-duty member die by their own hand each day. It's absolutely scandalous. On this Veterans Day let's thank those who served but let's also do something to help them preserve body and mind.

Today, I'd like to hear from any and all veterans in the WFMUniverse. Did you sign up? Were you drafted? Where did you serve? And what did you find when you returned? What fictional film or documentary best reflects your military experience? Call 201-209-WFMU... and thanks.

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