HAPPY VETERANS DAY TO ALL WHO SERVED

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  I am very proud of my military service and I frequently wear my Air Force ball caps and jackets out in public places. It is humbling to me when people go out of their way to thank me for my service. It usually catches me by surprise and all I can think to say is thank you in return. What I really want to tell them is that I consider myself blessed that I had the opportunity to serve my country. Not everyone gets that opportunity. I am also humbled because my service was modest compared to those who sacrificed their lives, limbs, health, and minds. They are in a higher category as far as I am concerned. Yet all veterans, that served honorably, belong to a special band of brothers and sisters. We all put our hand up and swore to uphold the Constitution and gave the government a blank check to spend our lives in anyway necessary to fulfill the mission. One thing I have learned over the years is that it doesn't matter whether you die on the Sands of Iwo Jima, the streets of Hue, in a barracks in Beirut, in a training accident, or in an aircraft crash on the way to a duty assignment, you still died for your country. Like so many others, I left a wife and child back home for a year while I served overseas. I was married for the almost twenty-one years that I served in the military and serving my country would have been much more difficult without their love and support. My wife wrote me everyday while I was overseas and we have to acknowledge the importance of our families and the sacrifices that they go through. I must admit that I would not want to do it again but I would do it again if I had to. I will always be proud that I served the greatest country on the face of the earth until the day that I die.

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