WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A VETERAN

I’m an 80-year-old Vietnam Veteran.

The funny thing about being 80 is that I look the age from the outside, but from the inside, I feel like the same man I was on the battlefields of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

My buddies and other veterans to whom I speak feel the same way. We often wonder who that older person is staring back at us in the mirror.

As U.S. veterans, we were willing to fight and die in service to our country.

It meant separation from our families, loved ones, and friends. It meant giving up control of our lives to others and trusting our skills and well-being to them. It meant risking life and limb to complete a mission, helping our brothers who stood beside us, and doing our duty. It told us we took a solemn oath to ‘Support and Defend the Constitution of the United States’ and did not understand the meaning of this promise until we faced the enemy.

We suffered, became injured, and died, yet we are not sorry for our service.

Many called us stupid for serving our nation. Others held us in contempt for our service to our country, but they did not understand, nor will they ever know, what it meant to be a warrior in the service of America.

We were not subject to the lies of politicians or the reasons for our call to duty. It…