This is the speech that Tres wife gave on Veterans Day 2012 at the University of Cincinnati. Thank you very much for the honor of being here today but I will be honest, I had second thoughts. I am a military widow. My husband was killed in action in Afghanistan on June 28, 2005. Memorial Day is in May. We are here today to honor our Veterans. But what is a Veteran? To borrow a few of Father Denis O’Brien words. 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. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You cant tell a vet just by looking at them. He is the police officer who spent six months in Saudi desert in the 120 degree heat making sure the armored personnel carriers didnt run out of fuel. She is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Vietnam. He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didnt 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 others backs. They are 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 oceans deep. He is the old man bagging groceries at the supermarket 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. And if I can add some of my own... He is my Grandfather who only after a few years serving in the Navy during WW2, wrote a quarterly newsletter to his shipmates until the day he died. They are the ones who selflessly jumped on a helicopter because 4 of their comrades were surrounded by the enemy and they had to go help. He is the man in Dress Blues who held me in his lap and cried with me as I was told my husband’s helicopter was shot down and his fate was not known. They are the ones that went knowingly into harm’s way because you never leave a fallen comrade behind and they brought my husband’s body home to us. They are the ones that had tears streaming down their faces as they carried my husband’s casket and they promised me that they would always be here for me and my daughters. And they still are. He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his lifes 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 the best thing I can say today and every day is Thank You. Those two little words mean a lot. In most cases it means more than any medals a veteran could have been awarded or were awarded. So to the veterans here today, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you have done for me and my family. Thank you for my freedoms. Thank you for all you have done for our country. You are appreciated, respected, and loved. God bless you and God bless America... and Nightstalkers Don’t Quit. Leslie Ponder
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 03:40:37 +0000
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