Thank you for your service
The meaning vacillates
by speaker, time, and place,
the words don’t reveal as much
as the expression on the face.
Young women seem respectful
of family they rarely name,
while young men speak with longing
to join a new video game.
Older folks are more reserved
and speak in somber tones,
of family or personal experience
carried deeply in the bones.
Fellow veterans never say this,
Because they know only too well,
that we were all young upstarts
eager to pave the roads to hell.
Few talk about the killing
or the toll of human waste,
still fewer the political decisions
commonly made with impulse and haste.
The war-making decisions
are presented so rational,
and when tinted with fear
the interests seem so national.
But the devil is in the details
of the permanent war economy,
so it is important to follow the money
to resist for the sake of our sanity.
John M. Johnson was born in Indiana, served in the US Navy aboard USS TAUSSIG (DD 746) as a gunnery officer and ASW officer during two tours of duty to Vietnam (1964-67). His American ancestors were pacifist Quakers for 12 generations (1611-1964) and he was the first member of his family to serve in the military. Later, he taught for 40 years at Arizona State University as Professor of Justice Studies in the School of Social Transformation. In recent years, he has been an active member of Veterans for Peace.
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