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Thursday, May 16, 2024 |
Veteran's Day 2003 (serious)  
Date: Sent Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Category: None | Rating: 4.22/5 (64 votes)
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/* We at GCFL can aways count on Tom to provide a serious, but important commentary on Veteran Day. Tom's mailing list, called (interesting enough)
Good Clean Fun, is one of the few that GCFL is willing to endorse. It is with great honor and respect that we quote his mailing for Veteran's Day.
Thanx to Tom and all vets that have paid the price for our freedom in America. */
There are a small handful of times during the year when I switch to a serious topic. Veteran's Day is one of those occasions that is very important to
me. In the United States, Veteran's Day is this Tuesday, November 11th (this is also Remembrance Day in Canada). In the early 1970's, Veteran's Day
became a "movable" holiday -- the fourth Monday of October. In 1978, at the urging of veteran's groups who realized the sanctity of the date, Congress
returned Veteran's Day to November 11th. Please remember that this day is not to honor war, but rather to honor the sacrifice made by others for our
freedom.
What we call Veteran's Day is the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice in the Forest of Campiegne by the Allies and the Germans in 1918 (the
11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month). This signified the end of World War I and was originally known as Armistice Day. President Woodrow
Wilson signed the Congressional Resolution on Nov. 11, 1919, the first Armistice Day.
However, after World War II, the day began to lose meaning and since there were many other veterans to consider, the decision was made to change
November 11th to honor all those who fought in American wars. The United States Congress passed an act to change the name to Veteran's Day and in 1954
President Dwight Eisenhower signed the act.
With that in mind, I would like to say "thank you" to all the men and women with whom I served, and to especially remember those who aren't with us
anymore. As a former Hospital Corpsman, I wish a heartfelt "Semper Fi" to all my Marine friends.
- Tom Ellsworth
(HM2 USN 1965-69)
(Note: The following piece was attributed to a Marine Corps chaplain, but as a Hospital Corpsman, I know that technically any chaplain with a Marine
unit is really a member of the US Navy, just as any doctor, nurse, or hospital corpsman (medic) is a member of the US Navy. This bit of military
trivia is most likely not known by most people, but it in no way diminishes the powerful message of the piece nor my profound respect for the
Marines.)
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WHAT IS A VETERAN?
(Attributed to a Marine Corps chaplain, Father Denis Edward O'Brian)
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 alloy 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?
A vet 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.
A vet 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.
A vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
A vet is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back at all.
A vet is the drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account punks and gang members into
marines, airmen, sailors, soldiers and coast guardsmen, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.
A vet is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.
A vet is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.
A vet 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.
A vet 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.
A vet is 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, and
who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
A vet is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more that 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."
Received from Good Clean Fun (http://www.slonet.org/~tellswor/)
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