Don’t Talk About It Be About It – Taking the Performance Out of Veteran’s Day 

This November, you will see the banners as they flap above car dealerships, fill the windows of department stores, and plaster the homepages of online retailers. They will exclaim their ‘Veterans Day Super Sale’ or ‘Honor Our Vets with 20% Off’… It is America’s most uncomfortable tradition, conflating a day of solemn remembrance with the crass opportunism of a holiday weekend. We have taken patriotism and put it in the clearance bin.

But the real price of freedom isn't on sale, and it does not come from a quality checked and focus tested speech from a politician. It's not being better than your neighbor, or the most pious member of the HOA. It certainly can't be covered by a store-brand-sponsored "thank you."

This is the hard truth about Veterans Day; American organizations have become experts in performative patriotism. It’s easy, it’s loud, and it makes us feel good. Some share a platitude on social media, buy a veteran a beer, and feel their civic duty is done. Some thank them for their service, a phrase that has become more of a reflexive courtesy, like "bless you" after a sneeze, than a genuine acknowledgment of sacrifice.

The problem with this performance is that it fundamentally misunderstands what we are meant to be honoring. It mistakes the symbol for the substance. The real price of freedom isn’t paid in dollars at a cash register. It’s paid in quiet moments that will never make a political speech or a beer commercial. It is paid in the 40-year-old’s knees that feel 80 from years of rucks and dismounted patrols. It's paid in the tinnitus that screams in a silent room. It’s paid in the hyper-vigilance that scans a crowded restaurant for exits, or the anxiety that makes a simple trip to the grocery store a strategic, exhausting operation.

It is paid by the spouses who become single parents during long deployments and full-time caregivers after. It’s paid by the children who learn to say "goodbye" far too often and wait by the door for a parent who returns, but as someone different. And for too many, it is paid in the "invisible" wounds; the moral injuries that are far heavier than any rucksack. This is the price that leads to over a dozen veterans a day being lost.

So what is the alternative? If the performance is hollow, what does real patriotism, real support, look like? It's not seasonal; it's a year-round commitment. Real support is substance over spectacle. It's holding our elected officials accountable for funding VA healthcare and mental health services, not just in an election year, but every year. It's fighting to ensure veterans get the benefits they were promised for the illnesses and injuries they sustained, like those covered by the PACT Act.

Real support is volunteering your time at a local VSO, donating to a reputable veterans’ charity, or simply being the friend who listens to a veteran’s story without judgment or platitudes, and maybe not asking that particular question. This Veterans Day, the price of freedom isn't marked down. It’s a debt that has been paid in full by a small minority of our citizens. We like a deal just like the next person, but lets keep our eye on the ball?

So, let's skip the performance. Put politics and the profits away, and instead spend that energy doing something real. Read about the challenges veterans face. Call your representatives and demand action. Volunteer. Ask a veteran in your life how they are doing, and then, just listen. That is what really matters, and the rest is just a sale.

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