Veterans Day Thought's

[derekl_1963]

Not original to me, but something I pull out every year:

VETERANS DAY THOUGHTS

Some veterans vear 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.

He is the 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 night-
mares 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".

And one for my brothers in blue:

I am the American Sailor;

Hear my voice, America! Though I speak through the mist of 200 years,
my shout for freedom will echo through liberty's halls for many
centuries to come. Hear me speak, for my words are of truth and
justice, and the rights of man. For those ideals I have spilled my
blood upon the world's troubled waters. Listen well, for my time is
eternal - yours is but a moment.

I am the spirit of heroes past and future. I am the American Sailor. I
was born upon the icy shores at Plymouth, rocked upon the waves of the
Atlantic, and nursed in the wilderness of Virginia. I cut my teeth on
New England codfish, and I was clothed in southern cotton. I built
muscle at the halyards of New Bedford whalers, and I gained my sea
legs high atop mizzen of Yankee clipper ships.

Yes, I am the American Sailor, one of the greatest seamen the world
has ever known. The sea is my home and my words are tempered by the
sound of paddle wheels on the Mississippi and the song of whales off
Greenland's barren shore. My eyes have grown dim from the glare of
sunshine on blue water, and my heart is full of star-strewn nights
under the Southern Cross.

My hands are raw from winter storms while sailing down round the Horn,
and they are blistered from the heat of cannon broadside while
defending our nation. I am the American Sailor, and I have seen the
sunset of a thousand distant, lonely lands. I am the American Sailor.
It was I who stood tall beside John Paul Jones as he shouted, "I have
not yet begun to fight!" I fought upon the Lake Erie with Perry, and I
rode with Stephen Decatur into Tripoli harbor to burn Philadelphia.

I met Guerriere aboard Constitution, and I was lashed to the mast with
Admiral Farragut at Mobile Bay. I have heard the clang of Confederate
shot against the sides of Monitor. I have suffered the cold with Peary
at the North Pole, and I responded when Dewey said, "You may fire when
ready Gridley," at Manila Bay. It was I who transported supplies
through submarine infested waters when our soldier's were called "over
there." I was there as Admiral Byrd crossed the South Pole. It was I
who went down with the Arizona at Pearl Harbor, who supported our
troops at Inchon, and patrolled dark deadly waters of the Mekong
Delta.

I am the American Sailor and I wear many faces. I am a pilot soaring
across God's blue canopy and I am a Seabee atop a dusty bulldozer in
the South Pacific. I am a corpsman nursing the wounded in the jungle,
and I am a torpedoman in the Nautilus deep beneath the North Pole. I
am hard and I am strong.

But it was my eyes that filled with tears when my brothers went down
with the Thresher, and it was my heart that rejoiced when Commander
Shepherd rocketed into orbit above the earth. It was I who lanquished
in a Viet Cong prison camp, and it was I who walked upon the moon. It
was I who saved the Stark and the Samuel B. Roberts in the mine
infested waters of the Persian Gulf. It was I who pulled my brothers
from the smoke filled compartments of the Bonefish and wept when my
shipmates died on the Iowa and White Plains. When called again, I was
there, on the tip of the spear for Operations Desert Shield and Desert
Storm.

I am the American Sailor. I am woman, I am man, I am white and black,
yellow, red and brown. I am Jew, Muslim, Christian and Buddhist. I am
Irish, Filipino, African, French, Chinese, and Indian. And my standard
is the outstretched hand of Liberty. Today, I serve around the world,
on land, in air, on and under the sea. I serve proudly, at peace once
again, but with the fervent prayer that I need not be called again.

Tell your children of me. Tell them of my sacrifice, and how my spirit
soars above their country. I have spread the mantle of my nation over
the ocean and I will guard her forever. I am her heritage and yours.