My Favorite Veteran

It's been a while since I have posted anything about my favorite veteran: my husband. Sometimes I forget he's a veteran because he did the majority of his service long before he met me. He's been in the National Guard, Army Reserve and enlisted Army, and throughout his life did end up serving 20 years, including a tour in Desert Storm. Sometimes he'll tell me about the years he lived in Germany or some philosophy in life he acquired from years of military service, but other than that, his other life is quite distant from our current life.

I'm proud to tell anyone that he is a veteran, and even a veteran of a foreign war. My sweetie, though, is quite humble and nonchalant about everything. Serving in the military is just something he did. No big deal. If you didn't know him, you may not even know he is a veteran. You might guess that he was in the military because he does still have some of those mannerism that one might associate with military and he does have this unidentifiable dialect that one would not expect from a small-town Nebraska kid. (I call it his Army dialect.) But he is not one to live in the past, so you probably would think that he had done a few years in the military and then gotten out pretty early on.

It might seem kind of weird to say this, but it is because of 9/11 that we met. Right after the attack, his reserve unit was called to duty to do a transportation mission. (He had been out of the enlisted Army for about three years.) He was the supervisor for his team, which was stationed in my town, a large ammunition depot. Now, I know there's probably some military jargon that better describes this, but I never caught on to it. Our sweet little story is one for another time, but I would say that his participation in the military brought him within my radar, and of all the military bases he should end up on...

So anyway, on this day as we remember and thank all our wonderful veterans, I just need to look at the man sitting next to me to express my gratitude. But while I'm at it, thanks to the rest of you all, too! No, I haven't forgotten my other family members (3 uncles) and former students who have served and are currently serving our country. Thank you!