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
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."
Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC
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