Veterans day question

[geoffgarcia]

Saw this on another website and thought I would post it:

Happy Veteran's Day
To us, those who came before us, those who will come after us, and to those who never made it home.

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: a spirit, 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.

What is a vet?

He is 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.

He is 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.

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

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

He is 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.

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

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is 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.

He is 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.

He is 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.

He is 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."

at any rate, it got me thinking about what a veteran is and where the line is drawn.

what about the guy that developed the clothing?
the more accurate gun?
the better meal rations?
the guy that designed a safer vehicle?
a better radar?
someone that comes in to entertain the troops?
the guy that develops a superior car tire that gets used around the world, thus pumping money into the US economy to pay the soldiers and weapons?

Is it a black/white issue where if your paid as a government worker (soldier) then you are a vet?

I worked for CSC and they had a TON of troops on the ground (near the front lines) helping with missile guidance and the high tech side of warfare. They had security clearence obviously but weren't "troops". Are they veterans?


They might not be on the front line but they contribute greatly.

Where do you draw the line on what a vet is?

 

[Milky]

Dishonarble Discharge?

I think if you take the day off from work that makes you a vet if you dont take the day off from work that dosent make you a vet. lol...
What about the man who is dishonarbly dishcarged... He went and fought in vietnam and kills the enemy and fights for his life and country but he gets dishonarbly discharged when he gets back because he wants out ... has he not earned the right to be called a veteran? Or is it since he was dishonorably discharged that he no longer deserves to be considerd a Veteran? I have an uncle who was shot in the leg at Vietnam during an ambush luckly his brothers were there to watch his back and keep him from being killed or captured...He now helps others at a veterans hospital in Louisiana. Uncle Paul A true man if I ever seen one...