[DeTomaso] Veteran's Day

Christopher Kimball chrisvkimball at msn.com
Tue Nov 11 13:34:21 EST 2008


Amen to that.
 
Chris> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:20:19 -0600> From: G.Bartley at cebridge.net> To: detomaso at realbig.com> Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Veteran's Day> > Happy Veterans Day to all who have served our great nation. Thank you > for your courage and dedication. Thank you for our freedom.> > > > michael frazier wrote:> > >Last week I had the honor of talking to one of the little old guys who walked into the death camps near the end of> >World War 2. It's still chilling after all these years.> > In honor of Veteran's Day and all those who have, and are, serving.WHAT IS A VET?Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, ajagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidenceinside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in theleg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged inthe refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and womenwho have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vetjust by looking. What is a vet? He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweatingtwo gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't runout of fuel. He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whoseovergrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmicscales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel. She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleepsobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang. He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn'tcome back AT ALL. He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but hassaved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gangmembers into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs. He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medalswith a prosthetic hand. He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals passhim by. He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whosepresence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve thememory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor died unrecognized withthem on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep. He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now andaggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and whowishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when thenightmares come. He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person whooffered some of his life's most vital years in the service of hiscountry, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have tosacrifice theirs. He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he isnothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of thefinest, greatest nation ever known. So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, justlean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in mostcases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded orwere awarded.Thanks guys and gals!Michael > >_________________________________________________________________> >Windows Live Hotmail now works up to 70% faster.> >http://windowslive.com/Explore/Hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_hotmail_acq_faster_112008> >_______________________________________________> >> >Detomaso Forum Managed by POCA> >> >Archive Search Engine Now Available at http://www.realbig.com/detomaso/> >> >DeTomaso mailing list> >DeTomaso at list.realbig.com> >http://list.realbig.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso> >> > > >> > _______________________________________________> > Detomaso Forum Managed by POCA> > Archive Search Engine Now Available at http://www.realbig.com/detomaso/> > DeTomaso mailing list> DeTomaso at list.realbig.com> http://list.realbig.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso


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