GALLAGHER-L Archives

From: "Michelle Larsen" <>
Subject: Veteran's Day remembered
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 23:00:11 -0600

I received this today and I thought I would pass it on, also congratulations
to Bonnie on her success in quitting smoking, keep up the good work!
Michelle Nash Larsen

W H A T I S A V ET?
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 ribbons and medals pass him
by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in the Tomb of the Uknowns, 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 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 or
were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot "Thank You". Remember November 11th
is Veteran's Day.
"It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of 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 protestor to burn the flag."
Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC
_____________________________________________________________

As we observe Veterans Day we express our thanks to all those who have
served our country so valiantly, and sacrificed to much to preserve
our freedom. We take that freedom seriously and commit ourselves to
valuing it by passing it on.

This thread:

• Veteran's Day remembered by "Michelle Larsen" <>