A TRIBUTE TO U.S. VETERANS

America’s war veterans come in a variety of sizes, shapes, colors and ages. Their collective experience spans two world wars and a number of foreign conflicts. They have followed war mules through the mud of Flanders Field, dropped from landing barges onto the beaches of Normandy, faced the icy cold of Pork Chop Hill, trudged the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta, dodged suicide bombers in Baghdad and fought off the Taliban in the Swat Valley. All veteran’s, no matter how different the individual experience, share a common bond. A veteran is the first one to rise when the flag passes by of the 4th of July, and the last one down, for he has been a witness to the blood, sweat and tears which make this and all other parades possible. A veteran is a man of peace; soft spoken, slow to anger and quick to realize that those who talk most about the glory of war are those who know the least about its horrors. He never jokes about war because he’s been there and can still see, on memory’s vivid screen, the wounded and dying, the widows and orphans. He knows first hand that no war is good and that the only thing worse than war is slavery. He is a friend to all races of man, begrudging none. He carries with him the knowledge that it is not the man who is the enemy, but enslavement and false ideologies. Those whom he once faced across hostile battle lines, he now esteems as his brothers. A veteran is at once proud yet humble in the realization that many of his comrades who helped him make his lofty aim a reality, never returned. More than anything else, a veteran loves freedom. He can spend an entire afternoon doing nothing – just because it suits him. He has paid the price to do what he wants with his time. He also takes pride in the freedom of others – in men and women attending the church of their choice or not. In friends voting how they choose and in children sleeping quietly, without fear to interrupt their slumber. A veteran is every man grown just a little taller – a person who understands the awesome price of life’s intangibles of freedom, justice and democracy. His motto is to live and let live. But, if he had to choose between servitude and conflict, the veteran would once again answer the call to duty. Because…..above all…..above all else – a veteran is an American.