A little late, but a message to say
Happy Veterans Day! and
"Thank You! to all the veterans out there.
In the twelve years that (x, why?) has been published, this is one of the holidays that I've tried not to miss. However, there isn't a comic for it this year. Why?
The short answer: I couldn't think of one, short of another picture of a flag. The next to last resort is trotting out Mike's Dad and Uncle for a joke with the other vets.
Slightly longer: I'd rather not have one than to force one for a particular day. There were only a couple of Halloween comics this year due to fewer updates and less inspiration. Christmas is coming and it may suffer the same fate. When I make fewer updates and don't keep a regular schedule, I raise the bar on myself for what I should post. And holidays present their own problem in that they don't move, so I can't just post a comic a day or two later.
In the meantime, allow me to repost something that I found on the Internet some time in the 90s. I don't know if Father O'Brien, USMC wrote the entire thing, or just the part at the end. I used to post it every year when I had my own web pages when I was new on the Internet.
WHAT IS A VET?
Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC
WHAT IS A VET?
Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a
jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.
Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone
together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of
inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.
Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America
safe wear no badge or emblem.
You can't tell a vet just by looking.
What is a vet?
He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating
two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run
out of fuel.
He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose
overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic
scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.
She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to
sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or
didn't come back AT ALL.
He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has
saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang
members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.
He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and
medals with a prosthetic hand.
He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass
him by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose
presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the
memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them
on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.
He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now
and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who
wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the
nightmares come.
He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who
offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country,
and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice
theirs.
He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he
is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the
finest, greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just
lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most
cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or
were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".
Remember November 11th is Veterans Day
"It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier,
Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protestor to burn the flag."
Father Denis Edward O'Brien
USMC
