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A special thanks to all our veterans


archer

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What is a vet?

By Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

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 slows 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 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."

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

I'm not 100% certain as to why, perhaps I'm just getting more sentimental the older I get, but I find myself comming back to this thread ever 2 days or so and re-reading archers post each time. Maybe it seems to have more significance considerring the news, etc. hasn't let up or whatever it could be. I was wonderring if that post had such an impact on anyone else that read it?

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