Thankful for Each Veteran!

Today, as in previous years, the annual Veterans Day Observance I attended included a reading* entitled, “What Is a Veteran?” According to its author, Anthony Barton Hinkle, the answers are as varied as the veterans themselves. A veteran may be the “old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket,” or “the parade-riding legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.” As Hinkle points out, “Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a 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.”

As Hinkle so rightly concludes, a veteran “is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being – a person who offered some of his [or her] life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.”

I’m very thankful for the service each veteran has given, and I’m glad that each November 11th people all over this great country assemble to pay tribute to them and to thank them for helping ensure the freedoms we enjoy.

*An editorial that first appeared in 1995 in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Gestures of Gratitude

The Oct. 30-Nov. 5, 2011, issue of American Profile contained a wonderful story entitled: “Saluting Fallen Soldiers.” The article began: “A thousand American flags flutter in the breeze along State Route 157 as a white hearse carrying the remains of Army Spc. Randall Dalton enters Glen Carbon, Ill. (pop. 12,934), escorted by a mile-long procession of rumbling motorcycles and shiny police vehicles.” T

Larry Eckhardt, age 55, stood with his hand over his heart as the hearse pulled into the cemetery. He had driven 225 miles in order to place the thousand flags along the route. He has been performing this kind of service for over five years, assisted by individuals as well as by members of various organizations, such as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Boy Scouts of America.

He doesn’t charge for his service, of course, but he does gratefully accept all donations to help defray the expenses incurred during his travels throughout his home state of Illinois. He is also appreciative of the volunteers who help him plant the flags along the routes the funeral processions follow.

He plans to continue using this means to salute the fallen soldiers. “This,” he says, “is my feeble attempt to say thank you to every soldier who has ever served and fought to protect the freedoms that I have.”

May we, too, find a way to express our gratitude to those who have served. Even if we can’t do something on a grand scale, we can all do something! Even the smallest gesture of gratitude is meaningful.

© 2011 by Johnnie Ann Burgess Gaskill. The photos were taken in Minnesota and Georgia, and are NOT the ones that accompanied the American Profile article mentioned in this post.