Who are the men and women we honor each year on Veterans Day?\u00a0 An anonymous person offered the following description – “A veteran is someone who at one point in life wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount of ‘up to and including my life.'”\u00a0 What makes them write this check, make this promise, show this love of country, this loyalty to country?\u00a0 Could you or I write this check?<\/p>\n
The 1998 movie “Saving Private Ryan” offers us a glimpse of these values, this character.\u00a0 It chronicles a squad of Army Rangers sent behind enemy lines to find Private Ryan, his family’s sole surviving son.\u00a0 It was based on the true story of Fritz Nilrod who lost two brothers at Normandy and whose third brother was missing in action in Burma, making him his family’s sole surviving son.<\/p>\n
Per military protocol, any sole surviving son is to be removed from combat.\u00a0 The Rangers saved Private Ryan, but at the cost of American lives.\u00a0 He and the soldiers who died saving him showed us the same character displayed by an Airborne private during World War II’s Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-1945.\u00a0 The Germans had broken through Allied lines in the Belgian Ardennes, “bulging” into France.\u00a0 American forces were retreating at a rapid pace.\u00a0 To bolster the manpower and improve the morale, members of the famed 82nd Airborne were sent.<\/p>\n
A lone Airborne soldier was digging a foxhole along a road as an American tank destroyer was retreating, fleeing ahead of the advancing German army.\u00a0 The tank destroyer stopped where the private was digging and the private asked, “Are you looking for a safe place?”\u00a0 When the tankers said yes, the Airborne soldier responded, “Just pull up behind me.\u00a0 I’m the 82nd Airborne, and this is as far as the bast–s are going!”<\/p>\n
One Airborne soldier.\u00a0 The German army.\u00a0 No problem.\u00a0 He symbolized the pride and the power of the United States of America.\u00a0 Duty, honor, country.<\/p>\n
A similar event occurred during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.\u00a0 United States Marines were sent to Lebanon as peacekeepers.\u00a0 In early 1983, three Israeli tanks tried to run a road block at Rayan University Library in southern Lebanon that was manned by a unit of Marines.<\/p>\n
Marine Capt. Charles B. Johnson ran toward the lead tank, stood in the middle of the road, drew his pistol, held it at the 45 degree “ready” position and said, “If you come through, it will be over my dead body.”<\/p>\n
As he escorted the tank off the road, the other two tanks tried to run the road block.\u00a0 The captain jumped onto the second tank, grabbing the Israeli tank commander.\u00a0 The tanks turned around.<\/p>\n
One Marine.\u00a0 Three tanks.\u00a0 No problem.\u00a0 He symbolized the pride and the power of the United States of America.\u00a0 Duty, honor, country.<\/p>\n
What did these men possess that the rest of us do not?\u00a0 What do we owe them for their sacrifices, for the sacrifices of their families who live with the constant fear of opening the door to hear, “I am sorry to inform you . . . ?”<\/p>\n
And what of Private Ryan?\u00a0 The movie ends with him an old man, visiting the grave of the captain who died returning him to safety.\u00a0 Etched in his brain all these decades were the dying words of Captain Miller, “Earn this.\u00a0 Earn it.”<\/p>\n
With tears running down his cheeks, he turns to his wife pleading, “Tell me I have led a good life.\u00a0 Tell me I’m a good man.”\u00a0 He wanted to know if he earned what those men died to give him.\u00a0 Aren’t we all Private Ryans?<\/p>\n
Have we earned what 30 million American veterans gave us?\u00a0 Have we earned what over 650,000 Americans died to give us?<\/p>\n
Tomorrow morning look in the mirror.\u00a0 “Have I earned this?\u00a0 Have I earned it?”\u00a0 Thirty million veterans deserve an answer.\u00a0 More important, you deserve an answer.<\/p>\n