North Shore Veterans Counseling Services, Inc

WHAT IS A VET?

While reading the newspaper on Veteran's Day 1999, I came across this in an Anne Landers article.  I thought some of you might appreciate what was written.

WHAT IS A VET?

You can't tell a vet just by looking.  

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating 2 gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.  

He is the barroom loudmouth whose frat-boy behavior is outweighed in the cosmic scales by four hours of unparalleled bravery near the 38th Parallel in Korea.  

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

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another.  

He is the drill instructor who has never seen combat, but has saved countless lives by turning lazy no accounts into Marines and teaching them to watch each other's backs. 

He is the parade-riding legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand. 

He is the white-haired old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket, aggravatingly slow, who helped liberate a Nazi death camp.

A vet is an ordinary and extraordinary human being - someone who offered his/her life's most vital years in the service of his/her country.  He/She is a soldier and a savior and a sword against darkness, and nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.  We will never be able to repay the debt of gratitude we owe.

"Anonymous"