Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(2)
Hard work?! Waiting outside the ballroom doors, I stifle a snicker at the absurdity. Compared to what the people in this ballroom have gone through, my job isn’t close to hard work. All I do is find my mark, say my lines. Hard work is being far from home and up to your elbows in dust, crawling along the ground while the enemy shoots at you, wondering when the bullets will stop flying long enough so you can grab an MRE and wolf down your next meal. That’s hard work.
The scene ends. The ballroom doors grow quiet.
“Ready?” asks the organizer. His hand reaches toward the door handle. I nod. “Ready.”
He opens the doors to the ballroom and I walk inside.
The entire ballroom erupts into applause. I choke up immediately. The spotlight is focused on the podium, center-stage, where I’ll give my speech. I walk up the wheelchair ramp leading to the podium and glance around. It’s a massive ballroom filled with hundreds and hundreds of disabled veterans plus their family members. Some of the veterans wear their uniforms. Others wear civilian clothes with hats that show which war they fought in or the unit or branch of the military they served with. The atmosphere in the room is electric. I see a wide range of ages, wounded veterans from World War II to the present. It’s a sea of men and women, many with scars, prosthetics, burn marks, crutches, and wheelchairs—and all wearing the unmistakable look of pride. They’re clapping, cheering wildly, whooping, calling my name.
I am stunned. Humbled. The lump in my throat won’t go down. What have I ever done? Here are all these wounded and disabled veterans—men and women who have sacrificed so much—honoring me for merely playing a part in a movie.
The cheering continues, and I make my way to the stage, clear my throat, and choke out a few words. “I’m not prepared for the emotion I feel right now,” I say spontaneously, and I pause again. Looking out at the audience, I realize why they were applauding. Lieutenant Dan has somehow become more than just a character in a movie. To these veterans he has become a symbol of our country’s collective awareness of all our injured veterans, especially the Vietnam veteran. Already this character has grown beyond anything I could ever imagine.
Somehow, I manage to finish my words, and when I’m done speaking, the DAV national commander, Richard Marbes, presents me with the award. Richard is an injured veteran, and due to his time in service he’s standing on crutches with his right leg missing up to his hip. The award he presents to me is called the National Commander’s Award, one of the DAV’s highest honors. I make the mistake of reading the award’s wording: “Your superb performance brought awareness of the lifelong sacrifice of disabled veterans back into public consciousness in a remarkably positive way.” One word of that inscription stops me cold. But I don’t know what to do with it at first.
Still taken aback by that word, I come down off the stage, award clutched in my hand. People make some more remarks. The event concludes. I shake hands and pose for pictures. Scribble autographs and give hugs. Smile and say to as many veterans as I can, “Thank you so much for serving our country,” and I’m choked up now for a new reason. That single word has lodged itself deeply into my mind. The word has burned its collective sorrow and shame into me, and it’s made me say a silent vow to do everything in my power to overturn all the wrongs it stands for. The one word is back.
“Your superb performance brought awareness of the lifelong sacrifice of disabled veterans back into public consciousness in a remarkably positive way.”
That one word embodies the reality that honoring veterans hasn’t always been the norm in America. When our troops came home from World War II, they were given ticker-tape parades, but when they came home from Korea, they were largely forgotten. And when they came back from Vietnam, they were greeted with anger. Spit upon. Called names. Hit with wadded-up lunch sacks filled with feces. There were no welcome home parades for our Vietnam veterans.
When our veterans returned from the first Gulf War, unlike Vietnam, they were greeted with giant parades in New York and a few other cities. Yet even though our country eventually tried to make amends with Vietnam veterans by supporting them as they created the Vietnam Memorial in DC, and with some cities hosting in the mid-1980s a few welcome home parades, now in 1994 I can still sense remnants of this rift in our country, this still-open wound for the veterans of the Vietnam War. Little do I know how significant this moment at the convention will become in my life. Seeds are being planted that will grow into a tree with many branches. For it’s here that I first begin to ask myself: How can I make a difference in restoring what’s been lost? How can I help make sure our veterans are never treated that way again?
More than two decades later, on an early Monday morning in 2018 at my foundation’s office in Woodland Hills, California, I’m reviewing my schedule for the upcoming week—packed, as usual. A speech in downtown L.A. tonight. Gatherings with donors and veterans throughout the week. Meetings with foundation staff to go over the schedule for the next few months. A tribute concert to give this weekend. I take a deep breath.
It’s been twenty-four years since that defining moment at the DAV national convention, the moment when I began to realize what the character of Lieutenant Dan means to many people. I gave everything I had to the role because I wanted to pay special tribute to our Vietnam veterans who never got the thank-you and the pat on the back they deserved. Over the years I’ve met many people whose lives have been touched by the role of Lieutenant Dan, especially people in the military and veteran community, and I’ll always be grateful the role has done much good.