A Shout Out To All Military Veterans On Veterans Day

This article is addressed to all of those who have served in the Armed Forces. We appreciate all that you have suffered for the benefit of your country and want to publicly acknowledge you and thank you for the hardships that you have endured and the service that you have given.

You spend months and even years away from your loved ones and receive no financial compensation for it. You may come home and the small child that you left behind is older and doesnt recognize you as its mother or father. The civilian world doesnt know about all of the cold mornings that you stood in formation before daybreak and waited to begin physical training.

Recognize that our soldiers have to train year round and have had to stay outside in below freezing weather for weeks at s time. Try to imagine what it feels like to sleep on top of ice all night and have to come out of your sleeping bag before daylight. Imagine the shock of having to put on the clothing, equipment, and boots which have been sitting outside in the cold all night. While you are imagining that imagine having to hurry and get dressed, don your equipment, and pack the extra before your fingers get so cold and stiff that you cant tie your boot laces, all the while praying for the sun to come up so that you will have some warmth.

Imagine having to endure the stifling summer heat of the Georgia or Louisiana swampland in the summer time where the humidity is so high that it chokes you. Now imagine having to wear a gas mask for hours in these conditions along with a charcoal lined heavy MOPP suit because you are training to survive chemical attack. Add the fact that the gas mask restricts your breathing another 25%. Imagine the dry heat of the Mohave Desert. It feels much better but the temperature can easily get into the 120s. Better yet imagine the stifling heat of the Port of Dammam Saudi Arabia in August. The temperatures there routinely get into the 140s. The people who live there dont even come out until dusk dark to shop and take care of business. Now imagine being caught in a dust storm so severe that you cant keep the dust out of your tent, mouth, eyes, and belongings no matter what you do. Imagine living in a tent so hot that all of the occupants will drag their belongings into the inside shadow of the tent to escape the sun. As the shadow moves across the tent the occupants move their belongings. They do it because when the belongings are left in the sun they get too hot to touch. Imagine the metal vehicles that you operate out of in the summertime which get too hot to touch. Now imagine them in the winter time where the cold of the metal penetrates your boots in seconds.

Lets take this thing just a little bit farther. Imaging spending your nights in the swamps and sleeping outside hearing snakes falling out of the trees around you, or sleeping under a mosquito net where the mosquitos have found a way to get inside with you and cant get back out..

Those veterans who have been stationed in the 2nd Infantry Division may remember the alerts that we used to have there. Each time the alert siren went off there was always that feeling of dread because you knew that it might be the real deal. It didnt matter how many alerts that you had been through you just could never shake the fear that this time was for real. Veterans may remember one of the times that our intelligence sent us emergency messages that the entire North Korean army had mobilized and was marching on South Korea, and that they were in the tunnels that they have dug across the border.

Maybe those veterans who were assigned to nuclear units will remember the time when we were only one step away from an all out nuclear war with Russia. If you can wrap your mind around all of these things friends then you know what it is to be a veteran. Military Ring Express