When I was a Boy Scout, I spent half a day on 3 Veterans Days on the steps of the post office in Kilgore,
Texas selling the poppies to raise funds for the veterans. You might be surprised how many veterans of all ages and several wars would stop and thank us (when it should have been the other way around) and tell tales of battles long past. It did serve to make me realize how many of those old farts around town had been brave young
men in their day. It goes on still. We are naming the new VFW Center in the county seat for a local
marine killed in Afghanistan in May of this year. Our little town (11,000 people) was on needles and pins when our local
Texas National Guard unit was sent for a stint in Iraq. For a while, we had 168 guard members and about 40 regular military in Iraq. By some miracle, all of the guard members made it back. Locally, we have
lost one soldier killed in Iraq, one
marine in Afghanistan, and several few badly injured. It is a small town and we knew these young men and their parents, siblings and extended
family.
It is a small thing to take a few minutes to let a veteran know that you recognize their
service. Hats off to the veterans here on the board.