{"id":35623,"date":"2019-02-23T16:12:16","date_gmt":"2019-02-23T16:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=35623"},"modified":"2019-02-23T16:12:16","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T16:12:16","slug":"oh-how-the-nations-attitudes-toward-vets-have-evolved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=35623","title":{"rendered":"Oh, how the nation’s attitudes toward vets have evolved"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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My retirement journey has produced a lot of revelations.<\/p>\n

One of them involves the payback being offered to our nation’s military veterans. It’s still making my head spin, given how I have witnessed up close how our country’s feelings toward veterans have evolved over the past half-century.<\/p>\n

Here’s an example . . .<\/p>\n

I got off the phone this morning with the wireless telephone provider with which my wife and I are doing business. We’re about to terminate our TV\/Internet service at one location and move it to another residence. The young woman on the phone informed me of additional discounts provided to military veterans. “Are you a vet?” she asked. I told her yes.<\/p>\n

I called another number, got connected with another service representative, told her about my veteran status and then was told I could qualify for an additional discount on my phone service. It was simple, given that TV\/Internet service comes from the same company that provides us with phone service.<\/p>\n

We encounter this kind of “love” all the time. We walk into a restaurant and end up paying a little less for our meal because I am a veteran; we hired a moving company to haul our furniture to our new home and received a discount because of my veteran status; discounts pop up all over the place.<\/p>\n

I understand this isn’t really a big deal to many younger Americans. The country has ratcheted up its appreciation for veterans since about the time of the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91.<\/p>\n

Take my word for it, the nation didn’t express itself in this manner.<\/p>\n

I served for two years in the U.S. Army. I entered military service in August 1968, one of the most tumultuous periods of the past half-century. I went to Vietnam, served some time there, came home and then in August 1970, I drove home to re-start my life as a civilian. The Vietnam War was raging when I went in, it was still<\/em> raging when I got out. Americans were still angry over the conduct of the war and also at those of us who were following lawful orders.<\/p>\n

Businesses weren’t offering veteran discounts for meals or for any other service provided to citizens. Those of us of a certain age know how our fellow Americans felt about veterans in those days. It wasn’t pretty.<\/p>\n

I am grateful for the change that has occurred.<\/p>\n

None of what we’re experiencing now is a surprise. It’s just that it continues to boggle my mind each time I encounter the rebirth of our nation’s generous spirit.<\/p>\n\n

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My retirement journey has produced a lot of revelations. One of them involves the payback being offered to our nation’s military veterans. It’s still making my head spin, given how I have witnessed up close how our country’s feelings toward veterans have evolved over the past half-century. Here’s an example . . . I got … Continue reading Oh, how the nation’s attitudes toward vets have evolved<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2293,3079,3555,5116],"class_list":["post-35623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-news","tag-internet","tag-military-veterans","tag-persian-gulf-war","tag-vietnam-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35625,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35623\/revisions\/35625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}