A thank you to all patriot veterans this Veterans Day… We shall never forget!

Throughout our history, America has been protected by patriots who cherished liberty and made great sacrifices to advance the cause of freedom. The brave members of the United States Armed Forces have answered the call to serve our Nation, ready to give all for their country. On Veterans Day, we honor these extraordinary Americans for their service and sacrifice, and we pay tribute to the legacy of freedom and peace that they have given our great Nation.

I want to believe that some of our politicians are just blinded to the truth of what we are facing, but reality tells me that there are some in politics who hate everything that this country stands for and want to see us defeated, again, by our enemies. But this enemy is unlike any that we have ever faced. May God help us to stand for what we believe, or we will certainly fall before the onslaught of radical Islam.

The soldier understands well the counsel of Ecclesiastes 3:1-3—“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal.”

Regarding Vietnam and the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have never regretted a minute of my service in Vietnam. That’s because I did not see the war the way the media portrayed it. I saw it through the eyes of the people that I lived with, the people of Vietnam who wanted to live free in peace.

In an analysis of the media’s Vietnam war coverage, General Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnam’s most decorated military leader, wrote in retrospect that if not for the disunity created by John Kerry, Jane Fonda and their ilk, and promoted by the U.S. media, Hanoi would have ultimately surrendered.

Vietnam will not be a failure if we learn the lessons of that conflict. Politicians cannot run the war—the generals must lead and lead well. The majority of people in Iraq and Afghanistan want peace and freedom, but the media’s portrayal of that critical conflict is just as prejudiced as it was during Vietnam—maybe more so. The Left, with the media’s help, may force the same scenario in Iraq that they forced in Vietnam, with the same consequences for the entire region. The vast majority of our Armed Forces in the region both understand and support our mission.”

To all fellow Patriots who have served our nation with courage and great sacrifice, I offer my heartfelt gratitude. You have honored your oath to “support and defend... so help me God,” as do those on the front line in the war with Jihadistan today. You have kept the flame of liberty, lit by our Founders, burning bright for future generations.

Today, nearly 24 million (eight percent) of our countrymen are veterans. Of those, 33 percent served in Vietnam, 18 percent in the Gulf War, 14 percent in WWII and 13 percent in Korea. About three percent served in Iraq and Afghanistan and other counter-terrorism theaters. More than 25 percent of those veterans suffer some disability.

Please pause at 1100 EST this Sunday to pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.

Remember Veterans...

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.
What is a Veteran?

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 - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a vet just by looking.

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't 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 other's backs.

He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is 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 ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - 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.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's 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 remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag."