Remember November 11th is Veterans Day
What Is A Vet?
Some veterans bear visible
signs of their service:
a missing limb, a jagged scar,
a certain look in the eye.
Others may carry the evidence
inside them: a pin holding a
bone together, a piece of shrapnel
in the leg - or perhaps another
sort of inner steel: the soul's
ally forged in the refinery of
adversity.
Except in parades, however, the
men and women who have kept
America safe wear no badge or emblem.
You can't tell a vet just by looking.
What is a vet?
He is the cop on the beat who spent
six months in Saudi Arabia sweating
two gallons a day making sure the
armored personnel carriers didn't
run out of fuel.He is the bar room
loudmouth, dumber than five wooden
planks, whose overgrown frat-boy
behavior is outweighed a hundred
times in the cosmic scales by four
hours of exquisite bravery near the
38th parallel.
She - or he - is the nurse who fought
against futility and went to sleep
sobbing every night for two solid
years in Da Nang.He is the POW who
went away one person and came back
another ? or didn't come back AT ALL.
He is the Quantico drill instructor
who has never seen combat - but has
saved countless lives by turning
slouchy, no-account rednecks and
gang members into Marines, and
teaching them to watch each other's
backs.
He is the parade-riding Legionnaire
who pins on his ribbons and medals
with a prosthetic hand.
He is the career quartermaster who
watches the ribbons and medals pass
him by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in
The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose
presence at the Arlington National
Cemetery must forever preserve the
memory of all the anonymous heroes
whose valor dies unrecognized with
them on the battlefield or in the
ocean's sunless deep.
He is the old guy bagging groceries
at the supermarket - palsied now and
aggravatingly slow - who helped
liberate a Nazi death camp and who
wishes all day long that his wife
were still alive to hold him when
the nightmares come.
He is an ordinary and yet an
extraordinary human being?
A person who offered some of his
life's most vital years in the
service of his country, and who
sacrificed his ambitions so
others would not have to sacrifice
theirs.
He is a soldier and a savior and a
sword against the darkness, and he
is nothing more than the finest,
greatest testimony on behalf of
the finest, greatest nation ever
known.
So remember, each time you see
someone who has served our country,
just lean over and say Thank You.
That's all most people need, and
in most cases it will mean more
than any medals they could have
been awarded or were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot,
"It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier,Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag."
Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC
Let's not Forget our MIA's
and Pray we'll go back
to get them and bring them Home!
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