Holy shit that’s a wild story

My family’s history with the military amounts to “I didn’t want to go, they made me go, it was terrible, don’t be stupid enough to volunteer.”

My dad’s great uncle was a German immigrant drafted into the AEF. His own brother was drafted into the German army back home, they could have been shooting at each other! He came home with shell shock.

My wife’s grandad was drafted from the factories of Bayonne to lose an eye at Anzio. I honor their service but let’s be real: American society treated them like working class cannon fodder. Expendable.

The way so many institutions have turned this day into a holiday for war worship makes me sick.

Thinking mostly of my grandad, drafted from life as a migrant laborer to go lose a kidney in the Aleutians. He was proud of his service but told my cousin never to enlist because they would throw his life away.

Thinking too about my Iraq vet student distraught at the suffering of ordinary people he witnessed over there.

Thinking about my non-traditional university student in the 2000s who fought tears in class talking about the friend he lost in Afghanistan.

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen gambling addiction first hand but the proliferation of betting nowadays brings out my inner Frances Willard.

They don’t even need to see the end, just the incredibly seedy 70s poker den full of disheveled people with broken faces and spirits at the start and ask them if this is who they want to become.

And I do talk to people, but only because I’m simpatico, not because I want something from them.

We literally only live once.