Veteran's Day

I know that I have already posted this, but seeing how it is Veteran's Day, and I do not feel that I can gather up words deserving of expressing how I feel about those who fight for our country...I felt as though a repeat would not be awful...and there is also a new video at the bottom of a very good speech about those who put their lives on the line each and every day.
These are pieces of Ben Stein's book, "The Real Stars"


"In Today's America, Who Are The True Heroes?"

"If you ask the wealthy about the men in battle dress uniforms, they act embarrassed. The subject quickly changes."

"It's mortifying to be so goddamned selfish when other people are dying for you. It's like being caught naked with the maid in the laundry room: it's not supposed to be brought up...
But it has to be brought up. Three hundred million people are being protected by men and women they don't know."

"The men and women doing the huge deals on Wall Street, the men and women making millions in Hollywood, then men who cannot bear that their yacht is late being delievered, the men and women who cannot wait to read more about Lindsay Lohan, the teenagers who think they have it rough because they have to do math homework before they can play computer games, and the politicians in their neat suits --- every one of us --- is protected by the blood of the men and women in uniform...and we're ignoring their very existence."

"Part of this is the way it's always been, of course.
Some die that others may live."

"But what's new, and what's so insane, is that instead of a nation united behind these men and women in combat, solid like a rock behind their families, we pretend they don't exist.
We pretend that the wars aren't happening and that what's real is what's in People Magazine . This is just not right ."

"It's insulting to the men and women who offer up their lives for less than a Hollywood producer spends on tickets for parking in handicapped zones."

"To me, it is amazing, incredible, magnificent, and fantastic that men will sign up to die for people they don't know. It is breathtaking that women will spend years or a lifetime serving the country that pretends they don't exist.
...It is a screaming miracle."

"There should be a beacon of thanks shrieking into the sky every second, coming from our hearts and souls. I feel as if our whole nation should be pouring out hearts in gratitude every day and every night."
 
"....We cannot all be brave enough to do what they do. We cannot be young enough or strong enough. However, every one of us can pray and every one of us can be on our knees in gratitude."

"...God bless those sacred souls in their uniforms and in their hospital beds and in their graves --and the military wives, girlfriends, fiances, children, familes, the marrow in the backbone of America.
God bless those whose fear and courage lets us live in the lavishness and foolishness that is our daily lives."

-Ben Stein
The Real Stars
Preface pages ix-xii

"God bless this glorious American military, every wife, every child, every parent; and endless prayers for them to return home safe, mission accomplished. God bless them every moment of every day for keeping safe this America, inside of which we live as powerfully as we live in our skin. This has to be the central fact of our lives: gratitude for the men and women who make this great life possible, who wear the uniform and cover it with glory".

-Ben Stein
The Real Stars
Page 12
From The American Spectator 7/26/2006


This is a video of a speech reinactment (slightly revised :p) about former Marine, and Senator John Glen, also first American to orbit space. Now I know I am an Army Wife, and most of you reading this are Army spouses and family members, but put that aside for a moment because this has NOTHING to do with the Marines and EVERYTHING to do how thankful we should all be of those serving our country.


Enjoy :)