Veterans Day is time for a grateful nation to thank those who have put their lives on the line for it.
The idea has become a cliché for a reason – because it’s the right thing to do. We offer our thanks to American veterans here, and we also offer special thanks to the veterans of Sweet Home.
We thank you for defending the ideals of our country. We thank you for defending our freedoms, our lives, our liberty and our property.
We take pride in your nobility, the spirit that lays it all on the line for the right cause.
We offer our thanks to veterans of Vietnam, those who once were much-maligned while fighting the unfathomably difficult Cold War in one of its hot spots. You were winning a war that politicians chose to forfeit. You fought a war when too many in your own nation reviled you.
Korean War veterans, you may have fought the forgotten war, but you are not forgotten. We thank you for the sacrifices you made early in the first major conflict of the Cold War. Your efforts, like those of Vietnam veterans, helped nullify an evil, communist superpower.
World War II veterans, you have always been beloved by the American people, and rightly so. You faced an incredibly dangerous and evil enemy, one so outrageous that we find it difficult today to believe anyone ever thought appeasement was a good idea. You saved much of the world, even if our leaders at the time acquiesced to the drawing of the Iron Curtain.
More recently, we thank the veterans of the 1980s and the smaller conflicts where you followed the call of your nation. Your military was in no small part the beginning of the end for communism, symbolized by the destruction of the Berlin Wall.
To veterans of the first war in Iraq, thank you. You answered a call to help a nation occupied by an aggressive neighbor, one that needed our help at the time. This goes out to those who served in a variety of operations in the 1990s, to those who died and survived terrorist attacks. You were there serving the interests of your nation and people.
To those serving today, you are fighting what has become an increasingly unpopular war. Many seem to question why we remain in Iraq. Many Americans have no stomach for the realities of what war has become – especially this one. You are fighting terrorism in some fashion. The real reasons for this war may not be clear, especially not when we are in the heat of the battle; but we understand the goal and give our thanks to you for pursuing that goal wherever our nation sends you.
When it is in retrospect, we will see more clearly the follies and successes of our war on terror. We see how our nation has stumbled in the past and know we were never perfect; but you, our veterans, got the job done because we asked you to. And you are doing it now.
Thank you.
We want to do more this year than thank our veterans.
In our story about a veteran who died 62 years ago in battle, beginning on page 1, one of his much younger cousins tells us why finding those missing in action is important. Cheryl Munts explains to us that it is a closure for the families of veterans.
Veterans’ families have all made a sacrifice, especially when they lose a member to war. We are happy to report that one family had a mystery solved, and we specifically thank that family for what it gave up in the name of freedom.
To those who have family serving in a war zone today and to those who have sent brothers, fathers and sons to other wars, we offer our thanks as well.