Bestler | Veterans designation on driver’s license matter of pride

I learned the other day that eligible South Carolinians can get a veterans designation on their driver’s license. It costs $1 and helps identify one as a veteran to receive any possible benefits that might be available.

I don’t know what those might be, honestly, and my discharge was so long ago that I almost have to remind myself that I served.

I mustered out in 1962, after four years in the Marine Corps, and have taken advantage of my veteran status just once: I received GI Bill financial aid while in college.

Otherwise, I’ve never seen a VA doctor or visited a VA hospital or joined a military organization.

OK, I did march one year in my hometown American Legion band, but that was only to meet girls and stuff. I never became a bona fide Legionnaire.

These days, I only remember my Marine years when, around Veterans Day, my pastor asks veterans to stand and be recognized.

I’m not sure why I’ve downplayed my service, but I think it has something to do with the fact that I served during peacetime, between Korea and Vietnam, and never fought in combat as so many have since.

I once kidded that no one messed with us while I was in, but that joke wore thin after watching so many peers fight and die in the hidden jungles of Vietnam while I, having served, only watched.

I am still in awe of those veterans as well as the young men and women fighting today’s hellish wars in the Middle East. God bless you all.

I think the older I get the more important my military service becomes in my mind.

Since the end of the draft more than 40 years ago, veterans are becoming a vanishing breed. Many in my age group have served, but you can’t say the same for Generation X or the millennials.

Nor are any of today’s presidential candidates veterans -- something unheard of a generation ago.

So, yes, I’ll be hunting up my old discharge papers, stuffed away somewhere in the attic, and paying my $1 to get a veterans designation on my driver’s license. Today it’s a matter of pride.

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 11:38 AM with the headline "Bestler | Veterans designation on driver’s license matter of pride."