What is a Veteran?

 
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 tighter, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.
A vet is a cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personal carriers didn’t run out of fuel.
A vet is the bar-room 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 38^th 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 Coastguardsmen and teaching them to watch each other’s back.
A vet is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and metals with a prosthetic hand.
A vet is the career Quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.
A vet is the thee 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 deep.
A vet is the old guy bagging the 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 veteran _ whether active duty , retired , National Guard or Reserve - is someone who , at one point in their life , wrote a blank check made payable to The United States of America for an amount “up to and including their very life”.
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 metals they could have been awarded or were awarded.