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.
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 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."
So, what is a vet?
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,
Denis Edward O'Brien
...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.
USMC