Say Thanks to a Veteran

By Doug Geed

    I watched "Saving Private Ryan" again last night, an incredibly powerful movie that I think everyone in this country should be required to watch.

In case you've never seen it, it's Steven Spielberg's outstanding film that tells a fictional story in the all-too-real setting of D-Day -- the invasion at Normandy, France, in June of 1944, that turned around World War Two in the Allies' favor.                                                                                                     

    It's an amazing movie and among the many images that remain in my mind is the final scene. The national cemetery -- all those white crosses and stones commemorating our brave men and women who served our country. I think of Long Island's national cemetery in Pinelawn, the nation's largest, and the final resting place for my dad, an uncle, my godfather and thousands of others.

  Fortunately, none of my relatives had to go through what so many others did on that day in Normandy, but I'm sure they saw their own horrors that haunted them for the rest of their lives -- horrors that they never shared with anyone else. Typical of that generation.

     Then I think of all the veterans who served in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and now Iraq and Afghanistan. How many of them carried or will carry physical and/or emotional wounds because of what they went through?

    No matter where we are -- stuck in traffic, getting angrier by the minute on the L-I-E, frustrated by the long line we're on at the supermarket while we're trying to rush home to catch our favorite show, or cursing at our television set because our favorite team is losing -- let's always remember that right at that moment, there are thousands of men and woman scattered all around the globe far from their families.  And the only reason they're there is to protect the freedoms we enjoy back home.

   So on this Veterans Day, if you see anyone who served our country or does so now, just give them a thank you. I bet it'll make them -- and you -- feel good.

Comments

[Beatrice LaRusso]

still can't believe we still dedicate a day to the memory of the murderers, warmongers, and rapists we call the military. War isn't something we should honor, it's a shameful business. The only people I have any pity for are those who were drafted. Slaves of the government, sent to their deaths.