For over 150 years, a fundamental truth has defined the American military experience: our wars are fought somewhere else. Other than defending Hawaii and the Aleutians in World War II, our service members haven't faced a domestic battlefield since the Indian Wars. Our pride is reflected in organizations like the VFW—the Veterans of Foreign Wars. There is no domestic equivalent.

But that may need to change.

Every service member understands the language of combat honors. A patch on the right shoulder in the Army tells the story of a unit we fought with overseas. Soldiers also proudly wear the Combat Infantryman Badge or the Combat Action Badge depending on whether their expertise is infantry or some other deadly skill. US Marines and Navy personnel are authorized to display the Combat Action Ribbon for participation in active ground combat. These are all symbols of combat service against terrorists and enemies of the United States.

Now, listen to the words coming from the highest levels of our government. When the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, and White House Press Secretary repeatedly label their political opponents—be they Democrats, protesters, or simply "the left"—as "Hamas terrorists" or a "vast domestic terror movement," they are doing more than just speaking. They are redefining the enemy and redrawing the battlefield.

If their words are to be taken seriously, it is only logical to assume the military will eventually be ordered to engage this newly defined ‘threat.’ When that day comes, we will need a new set of honors. Get ready for the Upper Mid-West Campaign Medal and the Left Coast Campaign Medal. We might see our first Medal of Honor for domestic action since the Indian Wars.

And when the fighting stops, a new generation of veterans will ‘come home.’ They won't be joining the VFW. They'll be looking at the first posts of the VDW—the Veterans of Domestic War.

We would like to add this post was written entirely tongue-in-cheek; if any of this actually comes to pass, cats will be living with dogs, the apocalypse will have occurred, and it will be time to "abandon all hope."

In my younger days, I spent almost a decade during the Cold War living and working in Germany. During that time, I visited many of the World War II–era concentration camps where the autocratic regime of Adolf Hitler imprisoned and murdered more than eleven million European men, women, and children he considered untermensch ( German word for ‘subhuman’ or ‘undesirable’).

Beyond the haunting remains of the camps themselves, and the memorials to the millions who perished, I remember the countless black-and-white photographs lining the museum walls. They showed the inmates — many in their final moments — watched over or beaten by menacing SS guards.

What stayed with me most, though, is not the faces of the long-dead prisoners, but the scratched-out faces of the guards. In every camp I visited — Dachau, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen, and Flossenbürg — the same thing appeared again and again. In every photograph that included an SS guard, the face had been gouged away — erased by some embarrassed friend, relative, or neighbor in the years after the war.

The German leader, his hierarchy, and their followers during that period were very sure of themselves. But history has not judged them kindly. Although Germany has achieved extraordinary things since 1945, its people, specifically the children and grandchildren of those most involved, find they must still live with and answer for that dark chapter in their history. This serves as a powerful lesson for our own time, forcing us to consider the legacy we are creating and the consequences for which our own children may one day have to answer.

It makes you wonder.
You can’t scratch out the internet.