"Mike" wrote in message
ups.com...







Who is a veteran?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a
jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others my carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone
together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of
internal scar forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America
safe and free wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a veteran just by looking. So, who is a veteran? Who are
these extra special people?

He's the policeman on the beat or patrol car, who spent six months in
Saudi Arabia seating two thousand gallons a day making sure the armored
personnel carriers and aircraft didn't run out of fuel.

He's the barroom loudmouth, dumber than a wooden post to us, but whose
overgrown school-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the
cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery, exhibited near the
38th parallel.

He is the old man bagging groceries at the supermarket, very palsied
now and aggravatingly slow to us in today's fast paced lifestyle, who
helped liberate Nazi Death camps, and who wishes all day long that his
wife were still alive to hold him when his nightmares return.

He is the priest or minister in the local parish, who delivered the
last rights to dying young boys more times during one year in Vietnam,
than most other priests or ministers could deliver in ten lifetimes.

He or she is the nurse we see in the hospital, who fought against
futility, watching young boys die, or remain permanently disabled, and
went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in DaNang.

He is the prisoner of war, who went away one person, and came back
another....or hasn't come back yet at all.

He is the drill instructor, who has never seen combat himself, but has
saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account, rednecks and gang
members, inexperienced young men and women, into Soldiers and Marines,
and taught them to watch each other's backs in a time of need.

He's the parade-riding Legionnaire, who proudly pins ribbons and medals
to his chest with prosthetic hand - courtesy of a battle forgotten by
everyone, but him.

He's the career Quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass
him by, but whose function is indispensable during an active campaign.

There are the anonymous heroes in the "Tomb of the Unknowns" whose
presence at the Arlington Memorial Cemetery must forever preserve the
memory of all anonymous heroes that made the supreme sacrifice, and
whose valor died unrecognized with them on the battlefields and on the
oceans of the world.

He's an ordinary, and yet extraordinary human being; a person who
offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his
country - who sacrificed his ambitions so that others wouldn't have to
sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier, and a savior, and a sword against the darkness. He is
nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the
finest, greatest nation ever known. And we must never forget all that
they have given to us, which most of us take for granted today living
in our great nation-
Because:

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 organizer, who has given us the freedom to
assemble and demonstrate.

And it is the soldier, who proudly salutes our Flag.
Who faithfully serves beneath our Flag.
And whose coffin is honorably draped under our Flag.

Actually, most of us are very ordinary folks who just happen to have worked
in one or another branch of the armed forces of one or another nation for a
couple of years and did nothing the least bit brave or heroic. Most of us
sacrificed nothing and were much too busy with our own personal
post-adolescent concerns to be bothered about lofty ideals like freedom,
duty, honor, blah blah. Most of us are not, have never been, and will never
be Americans; most of us served some other greatest nation ever
known.....insofar as absorbing vast quantities of ethanol can be considered
a service.

The temporary presence of one or another garish bit of cloth
notwithstanding, coffins are draped with dirt.

Wolfgang
who will not go so far as to deny being a savior.....but the job would be a
lot easier with a bit of cooperation from the erstwhile saved.