Salute

On the same day every year Mom & Pop coffee shops to 5-Star restaurants serve heaping portions of patriotism.

Leading the parades are our aging heros. How we love to love them! The bands play, the horses prance, and the hushed crowds salute. Throughout the day, those absent are remembered. There isn't a generational gap: not by the Vets nor the on-lookers.

Openly Vets laugh, drop tears, and show a core tenderness sculptured through conflict, hardship, and perhaps war. Without words, their communications reach beyond the present and delve into experience where only a brother or sister is allowed.

Vets ignite in-mass gratitude which surpasses religious, philosophical, educational and socio-economic differences. On this day every year Americans are united.

Veterans of America: Thank you. May you all come home.

© Coninc., TheDownsideUp.Com 2006