posted 11-06-2001 04:07 PM         

Here it is:

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 Army 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/she is the pilot/crewmember/ground support person that keeps airpower
an effective tool of national policy.

He is the carrier pilot landing on a rolling, pitching, heaving flight
during a rain squall in the pitch-black night of the Tonkin Gulf.

He is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals
with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster (Army Supply Corps) who watches the
ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the Navy SEAL who humps endless miles of burning sand for three
days with no sleep or food and very little water to designate targets for
laser guided bombs or swims through a disease infested swamp and crawls
over
poisonous snakes under the cover of darkness to conduct intelligence on a
foreign government hostile to our own and our cherished way of life.

He is the annonymous 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, a sailor, an airman 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"

Author Unknown

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posted 11-07-2001 06:10 AM         

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CJ - The One and Only - 1999 Black
Mopar Exhaust System
Splash Guards
Matching Prowler Trailer
PProwler Vanity Plate

posted 11-07-2001 07:05 PM         

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posted 11-07-2001 10:02 PM         

Veterans get the short end of things. We should do whatever we can for them.

posted 11-08-2001 10:40 AM         

Either of you guy's decide to run for public office, let me know---you've got my vote.

Well said & THANKS