Is Being a Military Veteran “Worth It?”
Exploring the good, bad, and ugly of serving in the smallest US minority — the American military
Raymond Buchan passed shortly before arriving at the medical bay. Just before they laid him on the table, he died from the wounds he’d sustained after being shot through the collarbone and jaw. We held his memorial a few days later where I stood like a robot, uncertain of what to do or say. I checked out mentally and dreamed up some moment years from now where I could tell his wife and two sons about their dad. But Buchan’s wife died — from a bout of cancer, I’m told — two years before she turned 40. I’ve never had the courage, let alone the fortitude, to chase down his sons, given that it’s been some 16 years since that harrowing day in Iraq.
Like many who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, Buchan had already been deployed. In an old movie, Secondhand Lions, Robert Duvall plays an eccentric old war vet. During one scene, he beats up a bunch of punk kids who pull a knife at a local diner. When the teens ask just who the hell he is, Duvall remarks that he’s fought in two World Wars and countless other skirmishes on other continents. I saw the movie not long before deploying to Iraq and chuckled at the absurdity of someone fighting in two wars, only to realize that was about to be me. I’d already…
