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.

Who 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 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.

"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 protestor to burn
the flag."

Father Denis Edward O'Brien USMC


Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".

And here's a link to a site a friend told me about
Burn the Flag....
Ask Permission.

What is a Veteran