A Hollow Veterans Day

War seems quite distant at the moment, not only from Cambridge--there hasn't been fighting here since George Washington massed his troops on the Commons more than 200 years ago--but from America at least our America. Our, elite America hasn't been fighting for quite a while. Military men and women among us today appear anomalous. Veterans seem somehow alien, if we conceive of them as living; more often, though, we think of them as dead.

The showdown of Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf just five years ago appears today as a cultural relic of the '90s, another touchstone of popular culture created for our general consumption. It was the closest that our generation has come to large scale international conflict, thank God. We all watched the war on television, but few if any Harvardians partook.

The war in Vietnam which we were so loathe to call a war is even more removed from our lives here. We think of Vietnam in terms of the memorial in Washington--that black wall eulogizing all the dead soldiers. We think of Vietnam when we see homeless vets on the street asking for some change or a meal. We think of Vietnam when we see an Oliver Stone film.

For better or worse, war is a mediated experience to us. Our sentiments about it are formed with reference to secondary sources which, as in academe, are fine for analytical purposes but do little to highlight the gritty substance. They fail us in our inability to author a new military resolve. This was apparent yesterday, Veterans Day, which translated for students into a day's break from classes. Our communal "celebration" of this civic holiday did not truly honor any present fighting honor guard nor salute the efforts of past American military men and women.

Fifty years ago today in The Crimson, an above-the-fold front-page story told of a meeting of the American Veterans Committee (AVC) on campus. The attendees were not to be old men plodding around with walking sticks, but students from colleges all over New England. Harvard's chapter of the AVC, acting out of that eternal University spirit that places this place at the center of it all, joined with the Boston University chapter to welcome 40 delegations to a conference entitled "Problems of the Student Veteran." The student veteran!

Even more interesting than the concatenation of the interests and identity of the student with those of the veteran were the subjects being discussed at round tables and in plenary sessions at the meeting: "The Need for Expanding Physical Facilities," "The Challenge to Curriculum and Faculty: Revision in Teaching Methods and Shortage of Personnel," "Inflation on the Campus," "The Veteran Looks at Education" and "Breaking the Education Bottleneck." Central to these debates was Washington's new GI Bill, which did much to open up the nation's system of higher education to the middle class. In this legislation, service to country was honored partially through access to education. In the process, a mutual respect developed.

The combined reverence for the military and for education seems as ironic as the now-abstract concept of student veteran. The military seems to command little regard and less respect on campus today. Even the forces that hold legitimate grudges against the institutionalized armed forces (those fighting for the inclusion of homosexuals, for example) do not herald the military when they criticize it. Just as Harvard's ROTC program is housed away from the Yard at MIT, the military seems apart from the culture here and from the culture of our generation generally.

Despite the United States actions in the Gulf, when we think of the military, we think of the elderly vets of WWII or of the 40-somethings who returned from Vietnam. Even on Veterans Day, if we think of veterans at all, we don't envision members of the present armed forces, many of whom have seen conflict.

Lee Miller, a retired baker living in Cambridge, spent yesterday afternoon in the Square, looking out onto consumer-friendly Mass. Ave., where 50 years ago there might have been a parade in honor of Armistice Day. He says, "Veterans Day is a chance to reflect and be proud of men who sacrificed to keep this and other Allied countries free." Dorothy Riedly, a 14-year-old high-schooler from New Hampshire who also spent Veterans Day in the Square, says of the holiday: "I guess I like it because my grandfather is a veteran."

Lee Harris, a Cambridge engineer, had a different take on yesterday's events. A Vietnam vet who survived contact with Agent Orange and Light Agent Purple, Harris did not even have the day off from work. He rightly says, "People don't have any touch with what day it is." Yesterday was a free Monday for most of us: free of classes, free of paper deadlines and free of regard for the military veterans who have served us so well in wars past and present.

Joshua A. Kaufman's column appears on alternate Tuesdays.