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?
A vet 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.
A vet 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.
A vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep crying
every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
A vet is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or
didn't come back at all.
A vet 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.
A vet is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals
with a prosthetic hand.
A vet is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass
him by.
A vet 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 anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on
the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.
A vet 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.
A vet 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.
A vet is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, 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's the soldier, not the reporter,
Who gave us our freedom of the press.
It's the soldier, not the poet,
Who gave us our freedom of speech.
It's the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who gave us our freedom to demonstrate.
It's the soldier,
Who salutes the flag,
Who serves others with respect for the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protestor to burn the flag."
Attributed to: Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC
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