By Maj. Gen John B. Hashem, USA (Ret.), ROA Executive Director
I joined the Army Reserve at 18, while I was still a senior in high school. I started as a private and retired 40 years later as a major general. After spending that much of my life in the Army, I have a hard time accepting that someone can accomplish everything the military requires, complete their service honorably, and still have to question whether they can call themselves a veteran.
Someone can complete an active-duty enlistment without ever deploying, receive a DD214 documenting qualifying service, and be recognized as a veteran. Another person can complete a Reserve enlistment honorably, attend every required drill and annual training, and remain available for mobilization, yet leave without that same federal recognition. Neither deployed. Both fulfilled the obligation the country gave them. Somehow, we have made the distinction between their duty statuses a judgment about who earns the title.
I understand law establishes requirements for veteran status and particular benefits. I also believe we should question those requirements when they produce a result that is difficult to defend with the people who served. Commanders expect soldiers to show up prepared, meet the standards, and know their jobs. If orders come, they’re expected to go. This obligation exists every day. Whether they mobilize depends on decisions far above their level.
Families understand this obligation, too. So do employers who adjust schedules and the coworkers who cover an absence. Military service has a place on the family calendar and a demand on time that could have gone elsewhere. Those demands were part of the commitment, even when a deployment never comes.
Congress addressed part of this problem in 2016 by providing that people eligible for Reserve retired pay would be “honored as a veteran,” while specifying that the recognition itself created no additional benefit entitlement. While welcome progress, it leaves me asking why honorable service through drills and annual training needs a career’s worth of retirement eligibility before it receives that “honorary” acknowledgment.
Everyone who served honorably has earned recognition as a veteran. I offer that as a standard our country should adopt and a responsibility ROA should continue to advance. On Veterans Day, I think about the people I served alongside and the many ways their work sustained our military. Their contributions extended across units, occupations, duty statuses, and generations. I remain grateful for that service and for the families who shared its demands.
To our members, thank you for the obligations you fulfil and your service. ROA will continue working toward recognition that fully accounts for it.