MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — I haven’t a plethora of family who have served: One grandfather, a handful of great-uncles, an aunt who was an Air Force nurse, and an uncle who was a reservist. I belong nominally to the Sons of the American Legion, but have never been active. This all being so, I have never even remotely had the experience of coming from a military family — neither the uncertainty that accompanies having a loved one “fighting for his country” (though I have had friends, including a high-school classmate who took his own life in Iraq) nor the deep sort of connection, almost spiritual, that one whose grandfather stormed the beach at Normandy may have to the military-hero/freedom-fighter narrative. Because of this, I am a little hesitant to say a whole lot on Veterans Day; moreover, I have very mixed emotions about the attitude we collectively (purportedly) display on Veterans Day.

First, I say collectively because it seems, outside of American Legion and VFW halls and public schools, to have become little more than another paid-for-nothing — and, hell, I even worked a few hours today —, nearly forgotten —, the people whom we honor today nearly forgotten.

The attitude, to whatever extent we still embrace it, as numerous Facebook status messages reminded me today, is something to the effect of “We thank and honor American servicemen for protecting our freedom.” And here’s where my feelings become problematic.

But before I explain, I should make two things perfectly clear. Pace Mr. Roach, despite contributing to a Weblog at TAC, I am decidedly not a pacifist, sophomoric or otherwise. Notwithstanding Roach’s contention, I’d wager that few, if any, contributors to this magazine and its online presence embrace pacifism. Just War Theory? Sure. Constitutionally founded opposition quasi-imperialism? Damn right. A sick feeling that a wholly justified cause — incapacitating al Qaeda — has devolved, for a number of reasons, into a disastrous affair from which we can neither emerge victorious nor, it seems, extricate ourselves at all? It’s enough to turn anyone into a “pacifist” — except, it seems, for the people in power and the people who have been duped into believing that a) we can “win” in Afghanistan and Iraq and b) what ultimately will constitute these allegedly ineluctable victories in these quasi-nations will be anything but Pyrrhic.

Also, I deeply and intensely respect the men and women who risk their lives serving in the various manifestations of Hell that have emerged between India and the Mediterranean, just as I hold in high regard those who combatted Charlie in the jungles of Indochina. That so many veterans of that great quagmire, especially, have ended up on the streets of our cities is simply unjustifiable, further evincing, in my eyes, that the source of my discomfort regarding Memorial and Veterans Day is not off-base.

Simply put, I have concluded that the thank-the-soldiers posturing is one of the most triumphant, and most pernicious, myths of our culture. Arguably, Americans have not died to protect our freedom since the War Between the States (and, in that case, one could contend that only the grey-suited soldiers did this).

The Second World War, I concede, presents a more complicated situation: American soil was attacked. (We’ll check at the door debates over whether Japanese were agitated and whether Hawai’i ever should have been brought under American hegemony.) No war historian or tactical expert I, I shan’t pretend that I can offer an alternative to waging war against Japan (although I maintain my opposition to our destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima). Americans in the Pacific Theater fought — died — to protect our freedoms. But whether Americans shipped across the Atlantic did so is another question. Yes, Hitler declared war on us, and that being so, ensuring that he not invade American soil certainly was an urgent concern, but whether going on the offensive in Europe accomplished anything for the sake of our freedom and safety is far from settled.

Even conceding, as I am moderately inclined to do, that the servicemen fighting in the Second World War fought, indeed, to protect our freedom, that, by and large, Americans have not done this is undeniable. Neither North Korea nor Soviet Russia through that young puppet-state threatened us; the same goes for the subjugation of the Vietnamese, however unfortunate it was.

The great bloodbath of the second decade of the Twentieth Century? European pissing match of which we ought to have steered clear, rather than sending young Americans to their deaths in a fiery Hell that directly led to the rise Communism, National Socialism, and Fascism.

Spanish-American War? American imperialism.

Let us never denigrate the men and women who risk their lives in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, or Coast Guard, nor in the reserves or National Guard.

But let us not deceive ourselves: These men and women who return home in coffins rarely have given their lives so that I may compose this inflammatory post without fear of retribution from Adolf bin Hitler. They have done so for the imperialists and the corporatists.

The American soldier, however sincerely he believes that he is, isn’t fighting for his country; he’s fighting for the State.

We owe him better. We owe him safety and security at home, and the assurance that when he puts his life on the line, he does so for the meaningful things for which we tell him he fights, for which we thank him for defending.