Thank you for your service. To those who are currently Active Duty, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you. Happy Veterans Day!
What is a Veteran? 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. 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 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, "THANK YOU". "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 protestor to burn the flag." Anthony Barton Hinkle Published by Richmond Times-Dispatch Nov 11, 2005 This editorial first appeared in 1995 Often attributed to Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC. Thank you.
Thank you to all that have served. To those on still on Active Duty, thank you and may God bless you and keep you safe.
To all Veterans...May God keep you safe and may no American ever forget what you have done and continue to do for all of us!
Happy Veterans Day! Starting with my great, great Uncle, Reuben Bechtel, who died in the Civil War through my deceased Navy veteran father (WWII), and to all US veterans, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your bravery and patriotism and most of all your selfless service to our great country. Thank you.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is blanketed with poppies, wreaths, flags and images at the National War Memorial following the Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada..
