I don't normally do this to all the lists, but considering, I think it's
worth any chewing out I get. To all the Vets world wide and the families of
those not with us. Happy Veteran's day!!!!
GERALD EDWARDS
SFC, U.S. ARMY
Retired
----- Original Message -----
From: James Albin <JEAlbin(a)compuserve.com>
To: <GERMANNA_COLONIES-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2001 11:43 PM
Subject: [GERMANNA] Veteran's Day Tribute
I came across this on the internet and thought it would be a good
tribute
for
the veterans and those serving their country now. This was copied from the
University of Minnesota at Cranston website. May God Bless those who
serve now and those who have served in the past and their families.
Jim Albin
USAF (Ret)
Veteran's Day
Thursday, November 11, 1999
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-----
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. 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 protester to burn the flag."
Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC
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