Fecteau: A Deployed Veteran's Reflection

Fecteau: A Deployed Veteran's Reflection

This Veterans Day has a special meaning.  Again, I am deployed overseas in service to the imperfect, yet beautiful country I love so much.  However, Veterans Day is a day celebrating all veterans, and I would be a complete fool not to remember those that so shaped my decision to serve.

I come from a long line of veterans. My great grandfather, James Socrates Pappas, an immigrant from Greece, and grandfather, James Spiro Pappas, fought in World War II together on the U.S.S Ludlow. During one mission, off the coast of Italy, my grandfather was nearly killed when a German bomber dropped a dud a couple feet away.  While the Allied powers were victorious, unbeknownst to many, the diabolical Nazi genocide would soon be revealed and shock the world.  

My grandfather’s son and my uncle, John Pappas, served during a different time.  My grandfather pushed John to join the Navy as an officer during Vietnam instead of being drafted.  After all, he would be far away from the deadly jungle, so he thought, and the Navy was a family tradition.  Unfortunately, fate had other ideas in mind, John was given land duty coordinating strikes for Navy gunners. 

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Unlike in World War II, we misunderstood this particular communist threat.  We failed to recognize the Vietcong were more interested in independence than communist propaganda as their Communist leader Ho Chi Minh so eloquently once said, “Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty.”  While we had the best intentions, people like my uncle paid the price and returned to a divided country.  

I took a much different path.  When we were attacked on 9/11, I was attending the Community College of Rhode Island in Lincoln, Rhode Island. This attack felt much more profound, we were struck not on some distant American island, but our epicenter, New York City, and the place of my birth. 

After I graduated college, just like my great grandfather, grandfather, and uncle before me, I was off to war. While my grandfather wasn’t alive to see me join the U.S. Army, he would be proud with a one caveat.  He probably would have preferred I embraced the family legacy, and joined the Navy.  

After my two deployments to Iraq, I am currently again, far away from home. We are yet engaged in a global world against an insidious groups comparable to the Nazi regime. While concerns exist about intervention, there is a profound case to be made against merely sitting on our hands.  

Whether the so-called Islamic State, al-Qaeda, another country or some generic, evil insidious organizations that should take a prominent place in the next James Bond flick, we need to remember our veterans on days like this.  However, taking a cue from my uncle's experience in Vietnam, we have a duty not to intervene in an endless war with no end in sight on shaky justification. We owe our veterans at least that much. 

Overseas, no matter how much you try to emulate home, it never quite feels right. The food doesn’t taste the same, and most people never heard of coffee milk.  Though nice to see camels, we are told not to touch them because they have Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, (whatever that is). We have been given strict orders to no longer shoot at the gigantic spiders, though as creepy as they are, the temptation is real. 

Of importance to mention, I miss Rhode Island.  When far away from home, it always has a nostalgic quality. You don’t think about those awful Rhode Island potholes we probably still haven’t fixed, nor the high taxes, nor the crooked politicians.  You think about the unfortunate, yet meaningful traditions like how your mother always finds a way to burn the rolls every Christmas, or fact we have Dunkin' Donuts on every street corner.

Overseas, you understand we take a lot for granted every day; the ability to drive down the street to see your old elementary school, Curtis School in Pawtucket, or drop in and see an old friend you haven’t seen for a decade.  

Rhode Island is a strange place, no matter how much things change, everything seems to stay the same, but once you are so far from home that is a blessing because you don’t want to miss anything.  Perhaps when I return, Buddy Cianci will be mayor of Providence again? It is Rhode Island after all.  

This Veterans Day, we should honor the people who served, people like my great grandfather, grandfather and uncle, and remember the people still serving. There is no shortage of evil in this world, and in turn, there is no shortage of good people willing to sacrifice everything to oppose that evil. I am a testament to that.  

On this day, so far from home, I am proud to be one of many veterans who served their country. After all, it runs in the family. 

Matt Fecteau ([email protected]), of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, lost to U.S. Rep. David Cicilline in last year’s Democratic primary. He is a former White House national security intern and Iraq war veteran. He is currently deployed in support of U.S. operations across the greater Middle East.