Congressman Meeks Remembers Our Veterans on Veterans Day

Each Veterans Day, our attempt to capture and pay tribute to what American service personnel have done for our beloved country and the world are summed up in words such as courage and duty and phrases such as to secure and protect our freedom. All, of course, are appropriate, but even collectively they do not adequately express what happens to a young man or woman in uniform, in service, in battle, away from home. It does not speak to the lives interrupted and the uncertainties that come with answering our countrys call. In my opinion, what they do is sacrifice.

Newsman Tom Brokaw wrote in his book The Greatest Generation: At a time in their lives when their days and nights would have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workday world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possibleThey answered the call to save the world Though his words were in specific reference to World War II veterans, all generations of veterans who have offered themselves to the service of America have given a great measure of sacrifice. They have fought, bled, and shed tears. They have sacrificed. Our responsibility, our duty, is to remember this above all other matters in our history.

Fifty million have held the respected title: Veteran. It is every generations responsibility to make sure the numbers have faces. The only way this can be done is to record and share their stories and to continue the traditions of honoring their service such as those observed on November 11th.

On this day I honor our nations Veterans who have sacrificed for those known to him or her by name, by face, and for those he or she did not know at all. I request that you join me in this effort. We would all do well to remember that America draws its strength, its inspiration, and its prosperity from what someone sacrificed. What we do for them while they serve and after they retire their uniforms should be equal.