Valuing service to the nation

Christopher Ahn, a former Marine Corps sergeant from Chino Hills, Calif., remembers his return home from the Iraq war.

It had been a challenging tour, and he had served as head of detention facilities post-Abu Ghraib and as deputy chief of intelligence for his battalion.

“I loved it,” he says of his service. “It was an extremely good experience.”

For Mr. Ahn, 27, who now works in Washington as director of operations for Vets for Freedom, the war had a broader significance than defending his country.

“As a Korean-American, I really treasured the soldiers and Marines who lost their lives to liberate Korea,” he says. “I always viewed my service as kind of paying it forward. These people risked their lives essentially for me so I can be in America.”

Despite his gratitude for the opportunities he has in this nation, living here as a veteran also means being underappreciated, he has found out.

Two days after he returned to the United States and made it back to California, he went to lunch at a chicken-wings restaurant with a few buddies from home. When the waitress checked his military identification card, her words stuck a knife into the heart of his happy and proud homecoming.

“She went into this diatribe about how the war is stupid and President Bush is the worst president and how this is a horrible war. I said, ‘I think I did a lot of great things over there,’” Mr. Ahn says.

“Who knows what the possibilities are now for the Iraqis, and the American way of life is providing that, being that beacon on the hill that [President] Reagan talked about? And here is this person just obliterating my service entirely.”

Veterans, including Mr. Ahn and others, say they deserve better.

On Nov. 11, the nation gets its annual chance to say “thank you” as it celebrates Veterans Day.

For some, the holiday is confused with Memorial Day and holds little significance other than a day off from work.

For others whose lives and families have been touched - and often scarred - by battle, it means a time of reflection on the meaning of freedom and defending our way of life.

“I love America, and I’ve seen what it stands for, watching guys risk their lives to save Iraqis,” Mr. Ahn says of his time in uniform. “That is what America is about, not about Hollywood, fancy cars, Starbucks or Wal-Mart. It’s what brought us that: the willingness to do what is right. No other country is doing that.

“Sure, we have good allies, but who is the leader of the world pushing for goodness and harmony and democracy and trying to facilitate that? It’s the Americans, and not the government, but the people through their sacrifices,” he says.

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