I still remember the gentle tap on my shoulder even though it was more than 30 years ago.  I had joined my barber for a Friday night at the American Legion Hall, to drink a beer or two and to make small talk.  Emotionally drained after a long hospitalization from combat wounds in Vietnam, I had reluctantly accepted at Carl's invitation. 

 My private feelings were clear:  I wanted to push my war, Vietnam, into the deep crevices of my brain.  That, however, wasn't going to happen.  Everywhere I turned I found hostility during those dark days. A woman I dated asked me if I had killed babies.  A majority of my fellow Ivy League classmates celebrated Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese communists while insisting that those like me were war criminals. There was no reward in discussing a war that was bad enough in reality but made ever more painful by the ignorance and bitterness of the civilian world.

Answering the gentle plea for attention, I leaned back on my bar stool to take in this stranger.

"Kinney," he said to me.  "I understand that you are a Marine Vietnam veteran." I nodded, anxious about where this was going.  The man looked at me with a knowing stare.  "Well, if you want to know what a real war was like, just ask me.  I was in the Big One — World War II."

Had my ears deceived me?  I was all once surprised, angry, and curious. I pondered this confident declaration of his war being a "real" war.  Just how could his war be authentic and mine something less?  Didn't we bleed the same color?  I didn't know what to say.  I briefly toyed with the idea of a right cross to his chin.  Rather than talk it out or hit the man, I retreated through the front door, never to return. My Legion days were over before they had begun.

Years later, the two million Vietnam veterans took a collective slap in the face.  Tom Brokaw, the NBC anchorman who never donned a uniform in peace or war, honored this man and his peers as "the greatest generation." The case was simple.  They had experienced the Great Depression only to find World War II on the other end.  Since this was my father's generation we were talking about, I tried to find sympathy for their greatness.  At times, it was a struggle to find anything to believe in, even if it cast inferiority on my station in life.

Those who fought World War II were heroes.   If it hadn't been for them, we might be speaking German or Japanese, maybe even both. The world was black and white during that iconic period.  In those days, it was hard to find someone in the U.S. who didn't hate the Germans or Japanese.  The governments of our enemies were evil and must be destroyed. 

Perhaps Brokaw got it half right.  Was my generation, or those now serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, really less worthy than those who fought Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito?  Is there something special that set these men apart from warriors of other generations, especially the "greatest?" 

When my father's generation was called to service, they were asked to commit themselves for whatever it took to defeat our enemies.  It was not always clear that we would win World War II — only that tens of thousands would die fighting for this great country.  Did sheer numbers alone make them more worthy than those who fought in Vietnam?  We shared the same pledge to prevail, the same clouds of uncertainty, and, yes, the same fear that everything wouldn't always be okay.

My grandfather, who fought insurrectionists and others in places like the Panama Canal Zone in the 1920s had an intriguing look at war.  "Joseph," he would say, "the winning of wars is almost always political." What he meant was that the same diplomats who couldn't prevent war were, in the end, the ones who settled the outcome. 

I would like to think that we are veterans first and veterans of distinct conflicts second.  There are no minor leagues on the field of battle when bullets are flying.  As long as there are American battlefields, young men and women of this great nation will be ready to sacrifice their blood for each other and the greater good.  In so doing, they have more than fulfilled the requirements of citizenship; they have joined the cadre of warriors willing to lay down their lives. They are all the greatest, by any measure.