Quite a video

This morning, I watched a video that a friend of mine had posted.  It showed an older veteran who took his grandson and friend to watch a screening of some of the old war films from the WWII era.  At the end of the video, a few soldiers walked into the back of the theatre....  slowly, each person stood to salute the current generation soldiers.  By the time the video was over, my emotions were on high, tears were sliding down my cheeks, pride was welling up.  

As I watched this, I thought back...  a little over five years ago, as I was rushing through the Atlanta airport trying to catch my connecting flight an old man stopped me and extended his hand and shook mine.  Then he proceeded to thank me for my service.  I was on my way home on midtour from my first deployment and I was standing there in uniform not having a clue what to say.  I noticed the hat the man was wearing 'WWII Veteran', not that I needed that to identify him as being a veteran.  The words quickly came to and I promptly thanked him for his service too. 

He stood there for a second and his eyes seemed to glass over for just a second and it became obvious time had moved backward very quickly for him in that moment.  His eyes began to glisten and his face distorted a little, then he blinked and smiled.  He reached his other hand up and patted me on the arm before telling me I better get moving if I was going to catch my flight.  As he walked away, I wondered what glimpse had popped back in his mind.  I guess I will never know what he saw that day, but as I began heading towards my gate something told me that maybe he just needed to hear those two simple words.  The simple words that have evaded so many veterans for so many years because too many who have never needed to hear them don't know just how important they are. 

Everytime I see a veteran wearing a hat that say 'Korea', 'WWII', 'Vietnam', etc Veteran, I always make an effort to go up and thank them for their service.  Sure, by now - they have probably heard it at least once or twice, but it still makes my day to see the smile they get on their face, knowing that the younger generations may not have been around for their wars, but we still remember...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgYLr_LfhLo&sns=fb