Remember Veteran's Day

"What is a veteran?" He asked rhetorically. "Think about that, what is a veteran?" Some of the crowd answered in anticipation to find the resolution to his simplistic question, but he smiled and shook his head no silently. "You see, you can't just tell someone is a vet just by looking. Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a scar, sometimes even a certain look in their eyes can tell you." I smiled and closed my eyes refraining from the sudden urge to cry. "-he is a cop on the street who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel. She or he is the nurse who fought against hopelessness, who went to sleep crying every night for two solid years." He paused and as he did I peeked around to see others in the crowd wiping silent tears away from their face. "He is the POW who went away one person and came back another...or not at all."