Remember Our Veterans - OFF TOPIC

[Rick A.]

I DO APOLOGIZE! Still serving proud, as a retired veteran!

Would ask each of us to pause for a moment of silence tomorrow at 1100 and remember each and every veteran who has served over the years to protect what many in this United States of America take for granted - FREEDOM!

In 1918, on the ELEVENTH hour of the ELEVENTH day of the ELEVENTH month, the "war to end all wars" came to an end at the signing of the Armistice. We now celebrate that day as VETERAN's day.

Let us remember all VETERAN's but let us especially remember the MIAs and the POWs. But especially, let us remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice - THEIR LIVES, so we all can live like we choose to.

[Verle R.]

Re: Remember Our Veterans - OFF TOPIC

10 Nov 1775-10 Nov 2005 USMC 230 years old.
11 Nov Veteran's Day.

Remember all who served.

Semper Fi

Verle

[Joel Falk]

Re: Remember Our Veterans - OFF TOPIC

Verle, Happy Birthday and Semper Fidelis.

Someone sent this to me years ago, before the current war. I think it is a nice tribute.

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 that 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 awarded. Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".