OT: Veteran's Day

[George Roffe]

John Campbell wrote:

>Just wanted to take the time to send out a sincere "Thank You " to all the
>Veterans that have sacrificed to make our country the great one that it is.
>I would especially like to thank the Vietnam Vets that came home not to
>parades but to insults.

Indeed.  I too like to make a point every year (I somehow forgot last year)
to take time out to thank those who volunteer to place themselves in harm's
way in the service of their country.  I have no greater respect than for
those who answer the call of duty.

As one who benefits from your having answered the call....  Thank you.

God bless you all, regardless of country.

And here is something I have kept for some time......

Subject:        What is a vet?

In a few days Veterans Day comes up. Those who have been there,
remember  only too well.
  ====================================================

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

Remember November 11th is Veterans Day.

"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

George Roffe
Houston, TX
http://www.nissport.com