Former navy man felt unqualified to be veteran

It’s Veterans Day.

Nov. 11 every year.

I’ve always been pretty awkward about thinking of myself as a veteran, because to me as a youth a veteran was a guy like Gaylord Grubbs, Walt Rogers, Herb Heston, Ed Clark, Gene Moran, Keith Noller, Chuck Johnson, John Austin, Daniel McCowan, David Hatzell, J.B. Faulkner and so many more.

Real heroes.

Guys who quite literally saved the world — in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Not like some comic book “hero” in a Marvel or DC blockbuster.

Nope. The real deal.

Men who eradicated an evil scourge from this planet — evil unlike anything this old mortal coil had ever seen. Genocide on such a scale that it boggles the imagination. So much so that, to this day, there are those who falsely claim it never happened.

Well, happen it did. And thankfully the future president from Abilene, Kansas, had the foresight to order camera crews to document the horror, because he rightly predicted that someday people would try to deny it ever occurred.

So it came to pass that one day I willingly volunteered to wear the uniform of a United States Navy Pacific Fleet sailor.

I saw no combat, never personally witnessed a shot fired in anger. Yes, I endured a few hardships and saw death up close and personal, but it was not from combat.

I returned home after the adventure of a lifetime — serving alongside fine boys who were forged into men by the common bond of the sea and the ship we crewed. The ports we visited. The shared experiences. The sacrifice for the common good.

So no, I never thought of myself as a hero and didn’t really think I was a real veteran. 

I came home and became active in commemorating the real veterans through Memorial Day ceremonies, Veterans Day ceremonies and military graveside honor guard services. To this day I continue to do so, some 36-plus years after my honorable discharge from active duty in the U.S. Navy.

I’ll never forget the day I was with a group of my old World War II pals years ago at an event where we were all attending as guests. They asked for visiting veterans to stand and be recognized. Of course, I prompted them all to stand and be recognized as I started to move to the back to get out of sight.

And Ed looked at me and said, “Well, Jim, c’mon. What are you waiting for?”

I looked at him, and for some reason I wasn’t making the connection. You see, he was a real veteran. I was just some kid who went off to the Navy.

I guess I had the epiphany that day — dragged kicking and screaming, so to speak.

I’m actually a real veteran. But I still felt unworthy, uncomfortable, unqualified and uneasy calling myself that.

But there’s photographic proof.

In a picture shared on social media by a former shipmate, our group of U.S. Navy aircraft carrier radar air traffic controllers is shown aboard ship as it transited the Strait of Malacca, with Singapore sliding past the port beam.

Yes, we were sailors once.

We went to sea.

We were young.

It truly was the adventure of my lifetime.

And it made a rural kid who worked on a farm with a sawmill, steam engines, draft horses and teams of oxen and mules from landlocked east-central Indiana a genuine world-circumnavigating seafarer.

And a veteran.

To all veterans out there — no matter how you came to terms with being called one — thank you for your selfless sacrifice and service to our great nation.