It’s Veterans Day in the United States. When I was a kid growing up in Maine, every little town had a parade or other observance for Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and it seemed as though every family had at least one member that had served in the military.
In contrast, here in Palo Alto (and probably elsewhere) today, it’s mostly notable for the schools, post offices, and banks being closed. My daughter’s elementary school had one of the teachers’ spouses come in to talk to the 4th graders about being a submariner in the US Navy, and I suspect it may have been the first time many of the kids had actually met someone who’d been in the service. I think that there are actually more veterans around, but it’s not something that makes for great conversation in many social circles in the Bay Area.
Providing for a national defense is one of the core functions of government. Here in Silicon Valley, sometimes I feel like we’ve effectively “outsourced” it to the “professional military” tribe, who mostly don’t live around here, or at least not in my corner of the tech/business crowd. It can’t be a good thing when the institutions providing that service become so culturally and socially remote, regardless of your opinion on current foreign policy.
Suggested reading:
- Michael Yon: Online Magazine (photojournalism and dispatches from Iraq)
- In Flanders Fields (at Wikipedia)
- Remembrancing (Tim Bray)
