A Veteran's Day
Tribute:
Subject: Veterans Day: Thu, 11 Nov 1999
This is so true. People need to think about all that this says. I hope
it opens some people's eyes and makes them realize just what we do for
so little in return.
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 barroom 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 Danang.
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 remains unrecognized with
them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.
He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket, 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, Marine, Sailor or Airman, and also 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.
When you see one 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, "THANK YOU".
Remember, November 11th is Veterans Day
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