WHAT IS A VET?
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 died 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”.
Author Unknown
. At least it’s Friday and I know I did my legs some good. I can’t wait for my next leg workout!! Jer
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