Originally Posted By murfsmom Please remember to fly your flag today ! And if you know a veteran or see a military man or woman in uniform, thank them for what they've done for their country!
Originally Posted By TINK-MOBILE In Memory and Honor of all those incredibly Brave Allied Men and Women who gave their lives for our Freedom , we Salute Thee.. In Honor of all those who came home from these terrible wars thru out the years , we Salute Thee ... In Honor of these Brave Allied Forces built of Men and Women ,we Thank You for watching over our Homelands , we Thank You for all that you do in bringing peace and protection for us all..WE THANK YOU AND WE SALUTE YOU , MAY GOD WATCH OVER YOU ALL NIGHT AND DAY , FOREVER AND EVER ...AMEN... LEST WE FORGET... Thank you for this reminder Murfsmom... Please remember to wear your poppies.. REMEMBRANCE DAY 11TH MONTH 11TH HR 11TH DAY In Canada we still call this day, Armistice Day ...REMEMBERING THOSE WHO DIED AND FOUGHT FOR THEIR COUNTRY, WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU ALL....
Originally Posted By Labuda What is a Vet? By Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC 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 the38th 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 who 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 slows 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 mean a lot, "THANK YOU." "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."
Originally Posted By Ursula ^ She is the executive assistant in the cubicle next to me. She won't even let us buy her lunch today.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost It was me! But I came away relatively unscathed. I have all my fingers and toes, I have no hunks of metal embedded anyplace. I came back and raised a family, made a career, tried to live my life with total obscurity. No parades, no medals, no membership in any of the "war" clubs. No guilt feelings about how my comrades died and I lived on. I don't know why that happened and it is futile to attempt to figure it out. It is what it is. I'm proud to have served my country even though I cannot bring myself to agree that the loss of so many people was justified in any way. One of those people might have found the cure for cancer but was silenced by someone that he or she never met or spoke with or even saw in some rice paddy in South East Asia. I appreciate the thank you's but I really didn't do anything or sacrifice anything other than a year of my life. I hope that something I did made a difference, but I doubt I did. So please turn your appreciation to those who made real sacrifices and gave up so much of their lives trying to do what they felt was right, at the time. But most of all, remember that although the conflict that I was involved with had no real "savior" purpose, be careful not to blanket all conflicts that way. Some of them have freed many oppressed people and helped bring them out of misery and into a productive, happy existence.
