It’s Veteran’s Day in the U.S., a day to honor those who sacrifice for us. Many will ‘honor’ them by jumping on big retail sales. Restaurants are offering discounts and free ‘value’ meals. We’re all on the ‘support the military’ bandwagon again in recent years. Okay, not all. There is still plenty of hostility toward service members, most of which is never broadcast, but it is there. I guess that’s their right – free speech and all.
Except I’m not so sure our speech is still all that free.
Soldiers are restricted as to how much they can say. Military families have learned to be cautious. So who is telling us most of what most of us ‘know’ about the military? Well, artists, actually. Journalists. Hollywood. Authors. Songwriters.
Anyone else see the big problem with that?
Most of them haven’t been there. A big (and big mouth) actor said just the other day that his work was as hard as a soldier’s work. I actually laughed. It is funny when people make assumptions about something with which they don’t know. That’s still nothing compared to the big (and big mouth) author who loves to claim people join the service only if they aren’t smart enough or educated enough to do anything better.
Sad. Truly. They don’t get it. 
So far the only books I’ve read that center around the military and are realistic are Hemingway and Vonnegut. They were there. They know. All of these war movies? Come on. It’s Hollywood, and Hollywood loves to make 4-star generals look like morons and ‘brainless’ troops look like sheep who just follow orders without thinking. Of course they show them this way. They’re about 95% anti-military leftists. Just a fact. It shows. It showed glaringly when they all jumped on that non-American rapper who sang about killing American soldiers and their families and had him appear on big TV shows and even a nut commercial. Yeah, so he apologized. Big deal. What’s done is done. Too many of us didn’t even know what he’d done, but they did. And yet we supported him with our money in the form of watching the shows and buying the advertisers’ products.
It’s also a fact that the arts in general lean heavily liberal. That’s their right, but we should know and acknowledge that fact because the bias is overwhelming, especially when we don’t realize it’s there.
It is there. On both sides. Including in journalism that is supposed to try to avoid it. Most of them used to. No more. It glares through every headline and every sentence.
Yes, by all means, thank Veterans today, but if you truly care about our military, active and retired, consider them on a daily basis, pay attention to bias, research political candidates, and support those who support us. Veterans support us far more than any politician and we need to remember that.
And yes, I’m an artist and author, but I’m also an Army(Ret) spouse who knows the truth from the inside.
Love. Honor.
Trust.
Sacrifice.
Moondrops & Thistles
LK Hunsaker
Read the interview about the novel.
