Happy Birthday and Thanks

[Paul]

To all my fellow sly Marines, a belated Happy Birthday and Semper Fi as we celebrated our 233rd birthday.   

And to my fellow veterans of all branches of service, on this Veterans Day I say thank you for your service, dedication, and sacrifice to this beautiful nation of ours.  It is a pleasure and honor to know you all.   

[PBurke]

thank you guys. your service means more than you will ever know.

[Brkeatr]

Thank you also bro !!   Thanks also to our fellow veterans on here and God Bless you all !!   

[Tom McGarry.]

I too would like to thank ALL the Men and Woman in All branches of the Armed Forces both past and presant for their sacrafices, and theit courage in fighting for our freedom.

You Are ALL HEROS!!!

[herronm]

Paul and all of you who serve our Country...Thank You.

Here is a personal story from someone I admire.  You can find other stories at kirk.weisler.com

It’s Veteran’s day, and I won’t cheapen it with a feeble effort and some patriotic platitudes. Rather I will attempt to express something from my own experience and from my own heart.

I would like to share with you a personal story of an opportunity I had while serving a 4 year active duty enlistment with the 3rd Ranger Battalion at Ft. Benning Georgia. I also got to serve a short stint with the 10th Mountain Division while at Benning. Part of my service included being assigned to the dreaded “Funeral Detail” Which I was informed would be a mostly boring assignment to honor recently deceased veterans. The funeral detail was a 30 day duty assignment where I would be in charge of the seven man team who did the 21 gun salute, during the funeral services of any active or retired serviceman who passed away within a 2-3 hour driving radius of our post. Also assigned to our detail was a service man to play Taps, and the crew assigned to carry the deceased veterans casket and attend to the folding of the flag from his casket and passing it to the spouse or next of kin.

I cannot think of any other assignment or duty I performed during my enlistment that was as personally rewarding to me as this one. The absolute depth of humility and gratitude I felt for these men, whom I did not know, was surprising to me then as a young and mostly immature soldier. But my knowing them did not seem to be important…knowing that they had sworn to “uphold and protect”, that they had worn the uniform of a soldier, that they had been willing to put their life in harms way for a cause greater than themselves, seemed to be more than enough. I remember clearly the intense feelings that came to myself and my squad each time the sound of Taps reached through our ears to our hearts, each time the shots rang out, and each time our sacred flag was folded with reverence and respect. It seemed during those moments that the soldier we honored that day was some revered national hero, someone whom had single handedly won the day. As if the soldiers we honored at those services somehow represented every soldier who had every fought in or been to battle… the presence or sense that I felt during those sacred moments was if there were literally thousands of soldiers there at that moment, coming to pay their respects, to give reverence and honor to one of their own. On the sometimes long and mostly quite bus rides back to base as I reflected on the feelings of the day…I could easily imagine the deceased whom we had honored being welcomed from this life into the next by the Warriors and Soldiers of yesterday’s battles into a Army of with perhaps a different uniform, maybe a different commanding officer and weapons…but still fighting for the same cause…. A cause of Justice a cause of Mercy, Be-Cause of Freedom.

The fanciful romantic musings of a young Christian soldier?…Maybe so. One thing is for certain though…Funeral Detail was anything but mostly boring and honoring veterans dead or alive is no singular activity. Honoring one is honoring all, honoring all is honoring the one. Today I will find at least one veteran, I will thank him for what they have done, what they were willing to do, what he/she is doing right now and what they may be asked to do tomorrow. My experience on that funeral detail taught me anything it taught me that honoring one….truly can be honoring all…and in honoring them all we miss not a one.

God Bless America and the Soldiers Who’ve Fought for Freedom Kirk Weisler, Former Sgt, 3rd Ranger Bn. , 10th Mtn Division, 19th Special Forces

Hooah and thank you!

[tomgallagher]

Thanks to all my fellow Vets especially all the Grunts. No matter how sophisticated or devastating the weapon, it always takes a Grunt with a rifle and bayonet to close the deal. Who-ahh my brothers.

[schro]

I echo all the above....Team Schro thanks all members of the armed forces (current & former) for their dedication to our beloved country.

[Tyler]

Thank you to ALL of our Veterans.  Happy Veterans Day!

[xnewyawka]

Big, big thanks to all Vets and servicemen/women from all forces, active and retired.

You stand up for our great country and make us very proud, Thanks!   

[Mikekoz13]

Thanks to all you guys that have served or are currently serving.

Max-

Thanks for sharing. Your thoughts are, no doubt, one of the most profound items that I have read on SBG.

[hammerdrill376]

We could not do what we do..if you guys had not done what you did..and many still do. The words "Thank you" don't really say what I think about our veterans and active service members..problem is they just haven't invented the words yet

[time2shine]

Thank you to anyone who has served our country.  I am a proud American because of you.

[BALDANDRE]

Without a doubt!

[wpruitt]

Thanks for all you have done