I know most of you won't understand this.  I certainly can't claim 
authorship but I felt it was important to those here who know and understand 
to pass this on.


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. 

So, 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 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 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 life's most vital years in the service of his country and who 
sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

And, yes, he's also sometimes a guy who writes fanfictions and enjoys a good 
Anime.

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 

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

To all those on the FFML who gave of themselves, however brief, whether they 
faced a violent enemy or paid the price of 'eternal vigilance', Thank You.

*****************************************************************

G.L. Sandborn  
	Keeper of Uncle Fester
	Guardian of 12 Foxes
	Ersatz Cardinal Richelieu

Home on the range at:   sandborn@microlink.net
                        sandborn@burnsmcd.com

All my stories can be found at: 
		 http://www.microlink.net/~sandborn/ 

*****************************************************************