On this Veteran's Day in America thank you alone is not enough

By Jon Dunnemann

Staff Sgt. Robert Henline's transport was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He was the lone survivor.

Just a minute please. It has occurred to me that saying thank you is absolutely not enough for our veteran's who have paid the ultimate price as soldiers of all creeds, faiths, genders, races, and religions. I want to tell you that they deserve much more than mere words of gratitude.

If this is the full extent of our country's commemoration then we are falling too short of the promise that each lost soldier asks of us which is, please let this never be necessary again. That is right, never again let us readily become so angry, crazed, drunken, foolish, mentally disturbed, misguided or politically motivated that we would consciously attempt to justify seeking to kill and slaughter other human beings.

Make no mistake about it, the charge that we have been given by our loved ones is not to bring flowers to their gravesites or to build monuments to exceptionally brave soldiers or to spend more than half of America's federal budget on the military for that matter.

No. The soldiers last appeal to all of us, for the love of God, is to use their most horrible and painful experience along with our collective intelligence, human imagination, love of our other family members and those who are the most precious and fortunate survivors of war to unceasingly prevent future violent conflicts and to build significantly more durable bridges to peace, human flourishing, respect for one another, and shared global prosperity.

So in all of your remembrances on this 2015 Veterans Day let's try even harder not to lose sight of this never ending vision of our fulfilling the promise that we have to our veteran's and hopefully someday soon we will have the solace of hearing with our hearts their thank you to us from on high for creating a kinder, more peace loving and unifying world.

http://www.npr.org/2015/05/25/408505821/its-not-rude-these-portraits-of-wounded-vets-are-meant-to-be-stared-at