Stoneman: How you can really honor veterans on this Veterans Day

On Friday, we honor our nation’s veterans, a practice that goes back more than a hundred years to the end of the first world war. Politicians from Baltimore to Honolulu will make rousing speeches, as generations of politicians have done before them. As a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m grateful that they value our service, but I think we can do better than empty rhetoric. When the U.S. government ended the draft in 1973 and adopted the all-volunteer force military model, it effectively segregated the armed forces from the rest of the country. Today, veterans account for only 7% of the U.S. adult population, meaning most Americans probably don’t know anyone with military experience.