Thank You Veterans
- Thread starter DoWhat
- Start date
dan0623_2000
Active Member
Best explanation of a Veteran that have ever read. Wish I had come up with it but will not claim any credit other than posting it.
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.
With the exception of parades, 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 Afghanistan 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 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.
She is the drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and 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.
She is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass her by.
He is the anonymous hero in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at 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.
A vet is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his or her life's most vital years in the service of their country, and who sacrificed their ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
Veterans are Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines. They are saviors and a sword against the darkness, and they are nothing less than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you recognize 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 were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU."
"It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the veteran, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the veteran who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, which allows the protestor to burn the flag."
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.
With the exception of parades, 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 Afghanistan 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 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.
She is the drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and 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.
She is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass her by.
He is the anonymous hero in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at 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.
A vet is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his or her life's most vital years in the service of their country, and who sacrificed their ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
Veterans are Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines. They are saviors and a sword against the darkness, and they are nothing less than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you recognize 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 were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU."
"It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the veteran, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the veteran who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, which allows the protestor to burn the flag."
