This morning you awoke to a new day. There were choresto do, lists to check, and some moderate griping about some annoying item you had to deal with today. Meanwhile, someone you never knew stood watch on the hard steel deck of a ship, thinking about a distant little girl his wife gave birth to, but who hasn’t met her father yet.
You finish your morning routine, then head out to school. You fire up your car and check the gas gauge before heading down the smooth road to the college. During your travel, a man in a far-away land helps a woman …show more content…
Without a people, you would most likely not be in school but in a field. Without these people, you would most likely never have an opportunity to own acar. Without these people, your church may have been burned down or converted into housing. These people are your friends, family and neighbors. They are US Veterans.
They have given up the conveniences that you take for granted. A warm bed has been replaced with a cold rack or a cot. The food comes from cans packed years ago, or comes aboard their ship marked Grade C (poor quality). Their world smells like diesel, the dirt almost merging into the flesh of their hands. Their loved ones are half a world away, out of reach for months at a time.
The reasons why they are deployed across the globe vary. Some folks grumble about those reasons, but always from the comfort of their sofas, or driving their luxury sport utility vehicles. The Veterans cannot grumble. They go where they are needed, and the decision why is left to thepoliticians and