Speaking as a Veteran

Nonfiction by Dewaine Farria.

The last time I recall starting a sentence with that phrase was in the summer of 2015.

By then, I’d been a civilian for almost fifteen years. I was living in Jerusalem, serving as the United Nations Deputy Security Advisor for Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza—my fourth field assignment with the organization.

At the UN, I’d grown inured to the expectation of answering for my country. That moment when everyone turns to you, the lone Yankee at the table—all fifty states with sriracha on your chin. I mean, who exactly is qualified to speak on behalf of our patchwork of clashing communities? Like so many other aspects of identity, citizenship is mostly an accident of birth, and it’s strange to speak on behalf of a group you didn’t choose to join.

But on that evening—at a dinner party in West Jerusalem’s Abu Tor neighborhood—I spoke with absolute certainty on behalf of the only identity group I’d ever volunteered for.

“Speaking as a veteran, there’s no way the military community will let that comment about John McCain slide.”

I was wrong. At the 2015 Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, Donald Trump had quipped, “I like people that weren’t captured,” and my forecasted veteran-shitstorm turned out to be less than a drizzle.

The bulldozed American political norms that Mr. Trump has since left in his wake render the decade-old missive almost quaint—his early work. But as I reflect on how Trumpism continues to morph America’s veteran community, I find myself again and again returning to this moment.