What Is A Veteran?

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From the Los Angeles City FD Blog. Thought this was very well written.

http://lafd.blogspot.com/

Dear Friend of the LAFD,

The men and women of the Los Angeles Fire Department take pride in a

credo of service that places the needs of others ahead of their own.

There are times however, when our efforts - no matter how valiant -

should be rightfully overshadowed. One such time is on this 11th day of

the 11th month. Please join us in taking time to ponder the following

question...

WHAT IS A VET?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a

jagged scar, a certain look in their 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: a soul 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 that 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.

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One fine man often stated...

"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 protester to burn the flag."

Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC Veteran