Happy Veteran’s Day!
Today we celebrate free food at local chain restaurants and (hopefully) a day off - oh yeah and we thank Veteran’s for their service if you happen to know one. It is a day to remember our service members who saw the worst of the world and came home, to be welcomed or rejected by the country they served. So I do encourage you - thank a veteran.
I encourage you to do something else as well - thank a veteran’s family.
Somewhere, there is a mother and/or father who recently watched their 18 year-old leave on a bus or a plane on their way to basic training. There is a mixture of pride and fear as they watch them go - seeing their baby offer their life for us. What if they don’t come home after their first mission? It’s a terrifying thought, made worse by the fact that there is nothing they can do about it.
Somewhere else a toddler just spoke to their mother/father over Skype so they could say goodnight to a parent they haven’t seen in months. How do you explain to a 4 year-old why their parent is gone for long stretches at a time?
In a town not too far from you is a brother or sister that just called their sibling for the first time since they’ve been back from a deployment - and there weren’t enough words to fill them in on everything they’d missed. None of these families want pity, they are usually very proud to be family to their service member. Yet in the same way our veterans sacrificed their own comfort to protect and defend, those families had to give up a member of their family for irreplaceable moments in time. I know military members chose to take on this life - but often their families did not have a say (I’m looking at you mom and dad). So this Veteran’s Day - thank the families too.
