What is a Vet?Follow

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 TRADOC
drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless
lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into
soldiers, 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 logistician 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 **** 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 warded.

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."

Soldier worship never really went down with me.

He fixes your....Oh. You mean like a vet.

I see what you did there.

Horses? What are you, Anna?

And now that theme song will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.


"...before they resume, with a bang and a boom...." DAMN YOU.

Edited, Nov 11th 2008 7:25am by AshOnMyTomatoes

What about soldier pity?


I'm into a priori soldier pity.

Don't fret, mon ami, the ABC spent the whole day with various documentaries explaining that Gallipolli wasn't the be-all and end-all of Australian events in WW1, and spent the day focusing on the hi-jinks of General Monash and his brigade in Western Europe instead.

Edited, Nov 11th 2008 8:53am by Aripyanfar

Ypres. I just like saying it, really.

What is plagiarism?

If you're all so fired up about giving credit where credit is due, at least give the man that wrote that drivel credit for it. He was a veteran too, btw, Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, Lt. Col., USMC.

There is in fact a lonely quotation mark right at the end of the post, leading me to believe rosleck intended it to be a quote but copy-pasted it poorly.

I think he intended to post overplayed, mindless glurge.

Which he did.

While there are many great and selfless people of various professions that have helped to make this country what it is...today IS Veteran's Day, so my thanks and respect go out to them all.

A post I made elsewhere, ugh 3 years ago now (kinda suprised it's still there), a real life hero's tale. This guys story still pops into my head on occasion.

A vet is someone who gets to wear a badge like this, just like I do