Genealogy and family history for nearly all of us has something to do with
veterans. Every person and every county in this great country have been
affected in some way by veterans. So I don't think this article is in any
way "off subject." Read, but have at least one tissue or handkerchief
available.
Bud
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". Remember November 11th is
Veterans Day
Read the "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw to gain a sense of
recent
history and world changing significance of your father's generation
which
can be found no where else.