EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 CRITICISM

Truth is, for any veteran who served honorably, a misanthrope can find a moment in the veteran’s career to criticize. It doesn’t even require a venom-dripping cult member as the purveyor of negativity. It could be a decent person.

For example, take my distinguished career in the United States Navy. A much as I was beloved and honored, enough that they allowed me to transport an Admiral around in his boat, called “The Barge,” one might find a glitch.

My Admiral mostly had good things to say, even awarded me a letter of commendation for my service.

But, however, were he to be whisked from his heavenly “whiskey and poker” game with Jones, Halsey, and Nimitz, I’m sure he might offer, with his sternest admiral’s face, a mild censure for one incident.

That was the time I transported him and an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to some function. While executing a port moor, while followed by a raging ebb tide, on Charleston’s Cooper River, I almost tumped said Secretary into said river.

My Admiral was not amused. He continued his trust, though, even to the point of allowing my crew and me to transport his wife and her friends, on occasion, for a “wine and chilled chicken excursion” to Fort Sumter. (I loved those trips, and her, for she would always say, "Boats, you know how to properly dispose of this leftover wine and food, don't you?")

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

So there, next time you see a criticism of a veteran, especially if you are in the 99+ percent of Americans who will never don one of her military uniforms, please do us all a favor.

Mind your own damned business.