The Nevada Sagebrush

Emily Katseanes

When I was a kid, Veteran’s Day was a dusty, obscure holiday. Mostly, it was just exciting to sleep in. If we talked about anything regarding it in school or at home, wars and the people returning from them seemed too far off to be tangible, like they had jumped out of books or movies wearing strange hats and olden-day clothes. Part of this probably came from the fact that the only person in my family who has been in the military was my grandpa and I didn’t even know that until I was in high school.

But something else happened when I was in high school.

When I was 14, terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center and my transition from being a kid to an adult was marked with terrorists, anthrax scares, bombs over Baghdad, increased airport security and paranoia. When I went to concerts in 2004, the bands begged 18-year-olds not to re-elect Bush.

Then I graduated high school and some of my friends joined the Armed Forces.

Veteran’s Day suddenly became about my peers. People I knew would be going overseas in a few years. They would be shot at. They could die.

Meanwhile, I went off to college.

My early years there were marked with increased activity in the Middle East, Walter Reed, more security and more paranoia. My friend was flying from Chicago to visit me the day terrorists were arrested in London and liquids were banned from airplanes. I worried all day her flight would get delayed or cancelled (it didn’t).

What really started worrying me, though, is that kids around my brother’s age were only eight when the Twin Towers fell.

Their shadowy little-kid memories started with adults being worried about something they didn’t understand. They don’t know anything except an ongoing war overseas that moves in and out of the public eye. They grew up under that cloud of terror.

But something else happened, too.

When my brother was 15, the United States elected its first black president. Politicians began debating health care and exit strategies, not more spending and more war expansion.

When I was a teenager, the band Anti-Flag released a CD called For Blood and Empire. When my brother was a teenager, Regina Spektor released a CD called Begin to Hope.

So maybe things are changing again. Maybe my brother will write about growing up in terror and becoming an adult while the world started becoming optimistic and human again.

I hope my brother will have a mental image of veterans as people older than him, not peers. I hope he’ll be able to say, “My sister knows people who fought in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but I don’t.”

Hopefully, Veteran’s Day gets a little dusty again. Just a little, not too much.

Emily Katseanes is perspectives editor. She apologizes to her brother if writing about him is embarrassing. Reach her at ekatseanes@nevadasagebrush.com.

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