11/11/11
So tomorrow is Veteran's Day.
Some of you may know that I am the daughter of a veteran. My father, a career soldier who served more than 22 years in the US Army Corps of Engineers, was deployed for one tour in Iraq in 2003.
I can still tell you about the day we found out he was being deployed. The memory still leaves me terrified and heartbroken, and it's been years.
We got lucky. My father came back alive. But I know people who were not so lucky. Families that lost their fathers, their mothers, their sisters, their brothers.
I can tell you from firsthand experience that it isn't easy growing up in the military. That lifestyle requires an incredible amount of sacrifice - sacrifice that is hard to put into words. But it's nothing compared to what the soldiers themselves go through. The sacrifices we made as a family were nothing like the sacrifices my father was willing to make - for his family, for his friends, for his country.
So please, do me a favor this Friday.
Thank a soldier. Active duty, serving overseas, retired, vet -- doesn't matter. Just find one. And tell them thanks. Because they - and their families - are making an incredible sacrifice right now, and I promise that hearing something as simple as a "thank you" for all that they've done and are doing means so, so much to them.
And they don't hear it enough.
Some of you may know that I am the daughter of a veteran. My father, a career soldier who served more than 22 years in the US Army Corps of Engineers, was deployed for one tour in Iraq in 2003.
I can still tell you about the day we found out he was being deployed. The memory still leaves me terrified and heartbroken, and it's been years.
We got lucky. My father came back alive. But I know people who were not so lucky. Families that lost their fathers, their mothers, their sisters, their brothers.
I can tell you from firsthand experience that it isn't easy growing up in the military. That lifestyle requires an incredible amount of sacrifice - sacrifice that is hard to put into words. But it's nothing compared to what the soldiers themselves go through. The sacrifices we made as a family were nothing like the sacrifices my father was willing to make - for his family, for his friends, for his country.
So please, do me a favor this Friday.
Thank a soldier. Active duty, serving overseas, retired, vet -- doesn't matter. Just find one. And tell them thanks. Because they - and their families - are making an incredible sacrifice right now, and I promise that hearing something as simple as a "thank you" for all that they've done and are doing means so, so much to them.
And they don't hear it enough.