d and Shawn - Thank you.
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.
So what is a vet?
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 is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Iraq sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.
He is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
She is the drill instructor that has never seen combat--but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks, city girls, 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 POW who went away one person and came back another--or didn't come back at all.
She is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass her 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 die 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.
They are fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers. Sisters and brothers. Aunts and uncles. The quiet ones who are your neighbors, who may not even fly the flag they served under, not shouting their victories or showing off their medals. They are the ones who know the smells that go along with the pictures and memories.
They are ordinary and yet extraordinary human beings, people who offered some of their life's most vital years in the service of their country, and who sacrificed their ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
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."
