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 Iraq 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 drill instructor that has never seen combat--but has saved countless lives by turning
slouchy, no-account rednecks, city boys/girls, 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 die 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.
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 lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the soldier,
not the politician,
who has given us the right to vote.
It is the soldier,
not the campus organizer,
who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
Let's remember them on Veteran's Day, November 11th.