You're Welcome For Our Service
It's not "stolen valor" if you inherited it! Right???
It’s 11/11, make a wish!
I wish Veterans Day didn’t exist.
What??? What kind of disrespectful, ungrateful, flag-burning sonuvabitch would make such a cruel and careless statement — let alone PUBLISH IT on the INTERNET to his MILLIONS of readers???
I can explain!!!
In a perfect world, Veterans Day wouldn’t need to exist… because in a perfect world, there would be no veterans… because in that same perfect world, there would be no wars to make them.
Who’s the sonuvabitch now, bitch???
Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, so we have consecrated this holiday to salute those who have served our country, from the frontlines to the backlines, on battlefields, in naval theaters, and across airspaces, from All Quiet on the Western Front to Zero Dark Thirty.
Today I’m thinking of my Poppy Syd, Private First Class Steinberg, held captive for months as a German prisoner of the second World War, lucky enough to come home under his own power — without aid of a casket. He received a Purple Heart upon his return, the US military’s oldest decoration given to those wounded or killed in action, and lived the next forty years with a Nazi bullet lodged in his backside.
Can you believe this inglorious basterd? This Bear Jew who answered the call for his country, to defend the land his parents had settled against the same persistent evil that had driven them to it, fifty years earlier? This sonuvabitch gets shot and taken prisoner by Hitler’s goons — HITLER! The [Keith Olbermann voice] “worst person… in the world!” — only to outlive Der Führer and Himmler and Goebbels and Göring and Blondi (Hitler’s dog),1 and to be reunited with the love of his life, his waiting wife Elsie, in Norwalk, Connecticut.
And then, the babies start booming: first, my Uncle Jeff, followed by my mom, Tobi.
And thus, the origin story of my better half.
I’m also thinking of my dad’s dad, Grandpa Herb. He was also in the service…
He delivered for UPS!!! 😂😂😂
I descend on my dad’s side from a long line of medical discharges and deferments. In fact, Rogowsky is an old Polish word meaning “unfit for duty.” A childhood bout with rheumatic fever weakened Herb’ heart, keeping him out of WWII and Korea, while my dad dodged Vietnam on account of colorblindness and seasonal allergies.
Incidentally, they both became lawyers.
Thankfully, I reached my 40s without being forcibly called to war. I’d like to assume the ship has sailed on G.I. Rogo, but if this timeline somehow worsens and there comes the day I find myself drafted into service, you can bet I’ll be classified 4-F for my under-girthed and insufficiently-lengthed penis (per the War Secretary’s newly established scrotal standards).
But my mom’s side — those Steinbergs and Regenstreifs — those were the fighters. The scrappers. The absolute units. My Grammy’s brother, Uncle Sam, another combat-hardened vet, a hulk of a Jew. A gentle giant, stern and stentorian, with a neck waddle you could get lost in, and the courage to marry his cousin.
And Grammy’s sister Sally, proudly serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps as a WAC — and whacky she was. A salty old bird who smoked well into her 90s and ran with the pre-war Hollywood “It Crowd” while married to Jack Albertson — long before anyone knew the name, or recognized the face, as Grandpa Joe from the original Willy Wonka.2
And my mom, toughest of them all. Living three-quarters of her life with multiple sclerosis. Getting up every morning to face another day, and whatever disappointments and doctor’s appointments it may bring, for what feels like fifty years — because it has been. Resilience in real time.
And then there’s me. Half cold-blooded, cybernetic super soldier; half shirking, sniveling, super simp. Heir to centuries of selective cowardice colliding with reckless bravado. Torn between rushing to rescue the damsel in distress, and offering, “Gee, you know I would, but I was taught to avoid walking on train tracks. It’s dangerous. And besides, I’m not great with knots.”
You know what? I just decided to donate my blood.3 Making an appointment at a New York Blood Center mobile drive near Lincoln Center for next Monday. The way I see it, if Poppy Syd could shed crimson on foreign soil in defense of this nation, I can afford to bleed it forward.4
God Bless the vets, and God Bless America.
But not Riefenstahl! That angel enjoyed a gooooood, long life! She saw the First World War and The Last of the Mohicans!
Also, did you know that Hitler killed his own beloved dog before killing himself ? According to what I just read on Wikipedia: having lost all faith in Himmler by this terminal stage in the war, Hitler didn’t trust the cyanide pills supplied by the SS that Himmler commanded, so he fed one to his dog Blondi, who promptly died at his feet.
A couple things with that…
What wasn’t Hitler trusting, exactly, about Himmler’s cyanide pills? That they WOULDN’T kill him? What would be the worst case scenario, they’d lower his cholesterol? Was Hitler genuinely like, “Watch, this motherfucker gave me Garlique… ”
And so then, to “test it,” he crushes one up and shoves it down Blondi’s mouth… who then DIES right in front of him? Hitler ACTIVELY MURDERS his own beloved dog, watching her transition from canine to corpse, without expression (again, according to Wikipedia).
First of all, that dog didn’t have to die! I trust the Allied Forces would have taken her in and given her a good life in repatriation. Blondi wasn’t even four years old (in human terms, still in her 20s)! Besides, what did the poor dog know from war and genocide? Can animals be antisemitic? (UPDATE: I just asked ChatGPT, and she says, “No.”)
Just take the pill, loser! And if doesn’t work, KILL YOURSELF. A DIFFERENT WAY. LIKE, WITH YOUR GUN MAYBE?
#JUSTICEFORBLONDI
Don’t at-me, I realized Albertson’s Wikipedia page makes no mention of any marriage to a Sally Regenstreif, and frankly, I’ve never been able to track down any physical or digital proof of their union. In fact, the only bit of circumstantial evidence that exists to corroborate this canonical bit of family lore is that my Aunt Sally went by Sally Albertson. Ok! Taking your word for it, Aunt Sal!
Assuming it’s of use to anyone but me.
I’m doing it for Grandpa Herb, too, in honor of the many needles he surely suffered in treating his childhood illness.