There is a scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which King Arthur manhandles a mud-splattered, mouthy peasant named Dennis. First Arthur tells how he became king – the Lady of the Lake, decked out in splendor, raised a shining sword from the water to call him to the throne. But Dennis is having none of it. “Farcical aquatic ceremonies,” he says, “are no basis for a system of government.” When Arthur explodes and pushes him around, Dennis calls out, “Now we see the violence inherent in the system! Come and see the violence inherent in the system!”

Of course being bullied by King Arthur is nothing compared to some of the film’s other scenes. The medieval sword-play is slashingly brutal, although the movie presents it as satire. For that matter, much of the violence we see in films is comical or cartoonish. Other movie violence looks serious but we don’t take it seriously as we sit on our couches with our fingers in the popcorn. Only in our entertainments do most of us wish to see violence, inherent in the system or otherwise. Unless we live in the grimmest part of a city or drive a squad car or work in an emergency room or serve in combat, we North Americans may go our whole lives without taking a good close look at the violence that runs through human life.

In this age of the volunteer military, fewer American families know what it means to serve in the armed forces, much less what it means to go into combat. But it’s the knowledge of violence that separates those who have and have not been to war.

Veterans are famously reserved about what they’ve witnessed and what they’ve done. Many go years without speaking of it, and some, deep in old age, carry their burdens away with them silently forever.

Their reluctance makes sense. Idle party chat about war is an indignity, a betrayal, a failure to do justice to the most serious things. The rest of us won’t really get it, so veterans button their lips. It must be hard for someone who knows violence to listen to the misconceptions and enthusiasms of the naïve. “You were in the war! Wow, what was that like?”

I think of the few veterans who have decided to tell me about war. Typically, their stories are of certain times and places, particular moments, really, very sharp and particular sins and outrages and suffering. They earned the right to tell, or not, by having lived it.

At work I found myself heading toward the elevator with a colleague who had been in Vietnam. “Hey, it’s Veterans Day,” I said, but for a second I didn’t know what to say next. So I kept it to a simple “Thank you.” By the time he spoke, we were in the elevator. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Really?” I asked, and then he looked away. Behind the good manners, behind the reticence, I caught a hint of the weight of things witnessed but not told. The violence inherent in the system, no longer a joke, no longer funny, was now a ghostly presence in the little chamber. But then the elevator rose toward our floor and the conversation turned to other things.