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Happy Veteran's Day! (1 Viewer)

Joe Bryant

Guide
Staff member
Happy Veterans Day!

I sent this to our Footballguys readers today. We do this every year. https://www.footballguys.com/updates/?view=1024

I like this essay:

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 together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally 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.

They are 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.

They are 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.

They are the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

They are the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.

They are the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

They are the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

They are the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

They are 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.

They are 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.

They are an ordinary and yet an 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.

They are a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than 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".

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag."

-- Father Denis Edward O'Brien/USMC ******
 
16 years old
When I went to the war
To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side
And a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero
And I marched
And I fought
And I bled
And I died
And I never did get
Any older
But I knew at the time
That a year in the line
Was a long enough life
For a soldier
We all volunteered
And we wrote down our names
And we added two years to our ages
Eager for life
And ahead of the game
Ready for history's pages
And we brawled
And we fought
And we whorled 'til we stood
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder
A thirst for the Hun
We were food for the gun
And that's what you are
When you are soldiers
I heard my friend cry
And he sank to his knees
Coughing blood as he screamed
For his mother
And I fell by his side
And that's how we died
Clinging like kids to each other
And I lay in the mud
And the guts and the blood
And I wept as his body grew colder
And I called for my mother
And she never came
Though it wasn't my fault
And I wasn't to blame
And the day's not half over
And ten thousand slain
And now there's nobody
Remembers our names
And that's how it is for a soldier
Source: Musixmatch
 
16 years old
When I went to the war
To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side
And a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero
And I marched
And I fought
And I bled
And I died
And I never did get
Any older
But I knew at the time
That a year in the line
Was a long enough life
For a soldier
We all volunteered
And we wrote down our names
And we added two years to our ages
Eager for life
And ahead of the game
Ready for history's pages
And we brawled
And we fought
And we whorled 'til we stood
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder
A thirst for the Hun
We were food for the gun
And that's what you are
When you are soldiers
I heard my friend cry
And he sank to his knees
Coughing blood as he screamed
For his mother
And I fell by his side
And that's how we died
Clinging like kids to each other
And I lay in the mud
And the guts and the blood
And I wept as his body grew colder
And I called for my mother
And she never came
Though it wasn't my fault
And I wasn't to blame
And the day's not half over
And ten thousand slain
And now there's nobody
Remembers our names
And that's how it is for a soldier
Source: Musixmatch

Huh. I knew I knew it from my youth. Dylan? No. Stiff Little Fingers? No.

Lemmy? Absolutely. That’s an underrated song off of a late-career swan song of a great album.

“1916” - Motörhead
 
16 years old
When I went to the war
To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side
And a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero
And I marched
And I fought
And I bled
And I died
And I never did get
Any older
But I knew at the time
That a year in the line
Was a long enough life
For a soldier
We all volunteered
And we wrote down our names
And we added two years to our ages
Eager for life
And ahead of the game
Ready for history's pages
And we brawled
And we fought
And we whorled 'til we stood
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder
A thirst for the Hun
We were food for the gun
And that's what you are
When you are soldiers
I heard my friend cry
And he sank to his knees
Coughing blood as he screamed
For his mother
And I fell by his side
And that's how we died
Clinging like kids to each other
And I lay in the mud
And the guts and the blood
And I wept as his body grew colder
And I called for my mother
And she never came
Though it wasn't my fault
And I wasn't to blame
And the day's not half over
And ten thousand slain
And now there's nobody
Remembers our names
And that's how it is for a soldier
Source: Musixmatch

Huh. I knew I knew it from my youth. Dylan? No. Stiff Little Fingers? No.

Lemmy? Absolutely. That’s an underrated song off of a late-career swan song of a great album.

“1916” - Motörhead
Yea that's one song that has supreme effect on me for some reason. I can't even read the lyrics without misting up. I couldn't even read it to my wife without my voice cracking.

The line that gets me the most is we were food for the gun and that's what you are when your soldiers.
 

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