Veterans share a strong bond. But this election season showed me its limits

Veterans share a special bond with each other. We are connected by lived experiences civilians do not have, and by promises civilians do not make. A six-month deployment means we eat, sleep, work, and play only with our colleagues and never with our families. In the back of our minds when we take our oaths, we know that fulfilling them might result in injury or death. We’re also a small community — only about 6% of Americans have served in the military.

The strength of this bond outweighs differences like age, race, education and branch of service (although I delight in razzing my cousin for serving in the “Chair Force”). For me, however, this election season has revealed its limits.

I don’t usually talk about politics with my veteran friends. I know some of them occupy the opposite end of the political spectrum from me, as is their prerogative. And until recently, I didn’t think about this very much.

But earlier this year, I attended my first USS Truett reunion. Truett was the frigate on which I served as the anti-submarine warfare officer (ASWO) from February 1993 to July 1994, and our reunion included sailors and officers from throughout the ship’s entire active service. Truett was commissioned in 1974 and decommissioned in 1994, meaning thousands of men and women served on her (but mostly men, because the first women didn’t report onboard until 1992). About two dozen of us came to the reunion in Charleston.

I embraced shipmates I hadn’t seen in years, shook hands with others I met for the first time, and spent the weekend celebrating our shared maritime history. We had slept in the same racks, trod the same decks and gazed at the endless sea from the same fantail. Sea stories poured out of us like cheap beer in a liberty port (so many stories about liberty ports).

I was one of two female officers at the reunion and the guys from before our time were curious about us. A co-ed crew was hard for them to imagine, and they had questions. Where did the females sleep? How many were there? What jobs did we do?

When I told them I had been the ASWO, we found more common ground. Soon the sonar technicians and I were talking shop about submarine warfare and the sonar equipment we had used every day, even though our stints on the ship were years apart. I hadn’t been their boss, but they called me “ASWO” anyway (it’s customary to be called by your job title on Navy ships; I was always “ASWO” and never “Lt. j.g. McTaggart”). The weekend was a lovefest of patriotism and brother(sister)hood.

Then I got home and began accepting Facebook friend requests from the shipmates I'd met. Disturbing political posts and memes shared by my new friends started appearing in my feed. I’m not referring to reasonable disagreements about taxes and immigration policy; this content was often ignorant, sometimes cruel and occasionally vulgar. An image of children holding a sign in front of a burning White House that says, “I didn’t want WWIII, but my mom wanted a female president.” Speculation about how Taylor Swift (who is apparently fair game because she endorsed Kamala Harris) performs oral sex. An anti-reproductive rights message that read “The single most important thing in this election is your daughter being able to be raw-dogged without consequence?” Perhaps I had misread the chummy reunion vibes.

When the speech is coming from my fellow veterans, I breathe deeply and remind myself that they are exercising freedoms we fought for, freedoms for which some Americans paid the ultimate price.

Political differences don’t surprise me. Even though Department of Defense policy prevents active-duty military members from engaging in partisan politics, the military traditionally leans conservative. I, however, do not. That many of my fellow veterans did not vote for Harris isn’t news. What shocks me is the level of vitriol. And it’s gotten so much worse since Donald Trump won the election.

I voted for Kamala Harris, but my shipmates probably don’t know that; I avoid politics on social media to preserve both privacy and sanity. But I’m seeing a lot of gloating right now. Pictures of Donald Trump giving the middle finger to “the libs,” a graphic of Trump holding a trash bag with Harris’s face on it, a snarky “my pronouns are HE/WON.”

Can I overlook the content I find offensive and still cherish a connection with my shipmates?

I’m trying to, because as much as I detest vile and hurtful speech, I value the right to engage in it. When the speech is coming from my fellow veterans, I breathe deeply and remind myself that they are exercising freedoms we fought for, freedoms for which some Americans paid the ultimate price.

The most poignant moment of our reunion was the twilight memorial tribute to our ship’s namesake, Chief Petty Officer Quincy Truett, who served in Vietnam. His framed photo was our centerpiece, surrounded by shots of high-quality whiskey we never could have afforded during our active-duty days. Chief Truett’s posthumously awarded Navy Cross citation was read aloud. We heard the familiar story of how his disregard for his own safety contributed to his mortal wounds but led to the successful rescue of his men. We stood as one in silent reflection.

Then we passed around the shots and drank to Chief Truett’s heroism. Our connection to each other and to our shared history felt significant, meaningful and strong.

That was then. This Veterans Day, I will still thank my shipmates for their service with a modest nod to our time together, but I can’t pretend the divisive wedge doesn’t exist (just like I can’t unsee the fake images of Kamala Harris dragging a mattress behind her as she “goes back to California”).

Maybe I’m wrong about the special bond among this 6% of Americans. In our politics right now, we seem just as divided and angry as everyone else.

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