Sorry for the overload folks, but this one seemed especially appropriate today. Jan in Arizona ******** >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 hill- billy rednecks and >no -account 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 also was my father, your father, grandfather, husband, brother, >uncle, cousin, and yes , all the females who bravely served and are >serving their country, for OUR freedom . > 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 or is serving >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". > Remember: November 11th is Veterans Day >