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Lest We Forget: Rememberance & Veterans Day


Sugarskull

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Remember November 11th is Veterans Day -- Some Thoughts

 

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 alloy 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 tanks 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 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.

 

They are the troops on patrol in some godforsaken, war-torn country whose mere presence is a promise that nothing bad will happen on their watch, and who give the downtrodden a sense of hope for a better future.

 

They are the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Coastguardsmen and Marines who since September 11th have galvanized a nation and given us all a new definition of

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And again.

 

"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."

 

Thanks to the men & women who serve.

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She 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 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.

 

 

You bastage, all of these got me.

 

I directly know people who represent the first two, remember being heavily affected by Punchbowl Cemetary when I was in the boy scouts and we put flags on every unidentified grave, and have a deep and sincere reverence and shame (in myself) anytime I see interviews with WWII vets.

 

They all deserve more appreciation than the most eloquent thanks I could possibly come up with on a forum.

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We went to a Veterans Day assembly at my kids' school today. My daughter's 3rd grade class sang a bunch of songs. At one point, vets were asked to stand when their respective service flags were presented. It made me smile when I stood for Air Force and my daughter's eyes lit up.:)

A lot of kids had parents and uncles and grandparents there who had, or were, serving. Pretty cool.

Hats off to all the vets, especially the brave men and women of the 2nd world war.

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