Posted on Jan 21, 2015
Does it bother you to hear "Thank you for your service!"?
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All active duty stand down(but don't walk away, this will effect you later) Veterans does it ever bother you to hear that? "Thank you for your service" I apologize but it mmmm...bugs me something awful, telling me " your done go sit down and grow feeble " needs changed to something that endures like we do something like "YO JOE!" or another saying meaning get outta my way theres work to do and I ain't done yet! Forgive if I wasted your time, just wondering.
Thank You
Service
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 619
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Yes. It's just turned into another trend that will go away after awhile. A thank you for your service now does not make up for a "baby killer" then.
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PO2 Lisa Lloyd
How about hey you guys were not treated right then. So I am thanking you now for the idiots then. I was just a little girl then
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SP5 Douglas Armfield
thanks.. I don't mean to be a hard case but I'm losing more buddies now to cancer than I did back then..Ya get to where you don't even want to bring it up.
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SFC Peter Thens
I have a lot of vets come up to me and thank me for my service, when I find out they are "older vets" I make sure I thank them for theirs and tell them how they should have been treated like they are treating me
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I know you said stand down. But I figured this would be helpful, now as well as later when I hang up the uniform. When I hear a person say "Thank you for your service." I realize it's not mandatory for a person to say that to a person in uniform simply because I service, nor simply because it's politically correct, to support the troops, but because they appreciate a person defending their freedom and rights by fighting to keep it. It's truly an honor and a dream for me. The only job that I wake up loving to do and passionate about. It has been truly a humbling experience. I strive to remain humble because I know I am not alone in this thought process. I am simply one of the hundreds of thousands currently servicing, along with the many others who have the esteemed title of veteran. I say thank you, and always will thank a person who supports what I do, and whom I do it for.
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I know I am wrong in many cases but it has become a knee jerk reaction which makes it insincere. Some businesses make their employees say it when they become aware of it. My wife is also a veteran and when I tell them that they sometimes are dumbfounded and say nothing.
I think in a lot of cases it is pentance they think they owe for not serving. Yea, I know that might be wrong but I did 5 trips to Nam and when I get a welcome home itmeans a lot more because it pretty much always means the person was either there or is a close family member of someone who was.
I think in a lot of cases it is pentance they think they owe for not serving. Yea, I know that might be wrong but I did 5 trips to Nam and when I get a welcome home itmeans a lot more because it pretty much always means the person was either there or is a close family member of someone who was.
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When this fad first started it seemed genuine to me, now it is a boor. I think it is a little too little and a lot too late. Any more when I get that greeting from and adult my usual response is, "thank you, did you serve too?" They usually get it, 'nuff said. Where were all these people when I got home after 27 straight months picking rice out of my teeth? Sure could have used a little support then. I got home 1 Dec 1970 and landed at San Francisco International. You could just imagine the greetings that were handed out!
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SGT James Colwell
I appreciate your service, and I am aware of the kind of greetings you and those who served with you got from an ungrateful nation. That was 47 years ago. Times have changed and for the most part, veterans are getting better responses from civilians, and rightfully so. You deserved better and didn't get it. I get why it is too little, but I would argue that sincere gratitude expressed for service to your country is never too late. I personally served between wars and I have been treated to varying degrees in both ways. Most people who thank you for your service are doing so out of a skewed understanding of what service members really experience. During the Vietnam era, people were led astray by over-inflated stories of what happened in SE Asia, and assumed that all SM's were evil. SM's of my era (80's) were guilty by association. Post 911 SM's are reaping the benefits of the anger people have towards the people we are currently engaging. After 15 years, that is beginning to wear thin, but the attitude towards SM's and vets is still favorable. Part of that is because of what you and other Vietnam vets endured. People may take a while to understand, but I believe more and more are now understanding the sacrifice vets have made, regardless of the era.
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Why would it bother Me ? That is not the reception We got when We returned from Viet Nam, this is 100% better ! Quite an improvement from 50 years ago on return to the US in Military Police duties having to deal with Anti-war demonstrators. I usually will respond by saying thank You for thanking Me. In My opinion if someone is going to express that appreciation don't respond in a negative way, that is so wrong !
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The following says it as well or better than I could myself...
"Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam vet and the author of the acclaimed book “The Things They Carried,” told me that his war’s vets who believed in the mission like to be thanked. Others, himself included, find that “something in the stomach tumbles” from expressions of appreciation that are so disconnected from the “evil, nasty stuff you do in war.”
The more so, he said, “when your war turns out to have feet of clay” — whether fighting peasants in Vietnam or in the name of eradicating weapons of mass destruction that never materialized.
But doesn’t their sacrifice merit thanks? “Patriotic gloss,” responded Mr. O’Brien, an unofficial poet laureate of war who essentially elevates the issue to the philosophical; to him, we’re thanking without having the courage to ask whether the mission is even right."
NYT SundayReview | NEWS ANALYSIS
"Please Don’t Thank Me for My Service"
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/sunday-review/please-dont-thank-me-for-my-service.html
"Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam vet and the author of the acclaimed book “The Things They Carried,” told me that his war’s vets who believed in the mission like to be thanked. Others, himself included, find that “something in the stomach tumbles” from expressions of appreciation that are so disconnected from the “evil, nasty stuff you do in war.”
The more so, he said, “when your war turns out to have feet of clay” — whether fighting peasants in Vietnam or in the name of eradicating weapons of mass destruction that never materialized.
But doesn’t their sacrifice merit thanks? “Patriotic gloss,” responded Mr. O’Brien, an unofficial poet laureate of war who essentially elevates the issue to the philosophical; to him, we’re thanking without having the courage to ask whether the mission is even right."
NYT SundayReview | NEWS ANALYSIS
"Please Don’t Thank Me for My Service"
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/sunday-review/please-dont-thank-me-for-my-service.html
Please Don’t Thank Me for My Service
Some veterans wince at reflexive gratitude.
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I am somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand it is good to be recognized (and like others have said, I take it as a thank you to all of US). In the middle, it seems to have become a bit "automatic" and trite. When some 18-year old clerks says it ... well it just doesn't mean as much as when some older cashier looks me in the eye and says it. On the down side, there is still a part of me that wonders where these folks were in 1970 when I came back from Vietnam, was told to travel in civilian clothes (like the haircut wasn't a dead giveaway), and ultimately called "baby killer" in what was supposedly a professional setting. Simply put, for me (and I think a lot of RVN vets) it's a "mixed bag."
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