[V8] Veterans Day: Thank you!

[Roger M. Woodbury]

It was quite a long time ago that I realized that I was going to have to
become a member of the US military.  I was teaching in the inner city at the
time, and although President Johnson had pronounced those of us who were
there a resource to be deferred from military duty, it had seemed suddenly
irrelevant when I realized that some of my students could be eligible for
drafting and dying for something about which they knew little in a place
that they had no idea existed despite my efforts in the classroom.  

So, I enlisted.  

I finally resigned my commission in early 1990, after some years of active
duty and some of active reserve.  Today I feel a strong sense of kinship to
those who now wear or who once wore the uniform in the service of the United
States.  

This afternoon while in a meeting, I was interrupted by my parents who are
both well into their nineties.  They were calling to say "thank you" to me
for my service.  They always do this, and it always touches me.

So I pass along to you from them, and from me, to all of you who once wore
or are now wearing the uniform of service to this nation:  Thank you for
"standing in the door" with me.  Whether you believe in the war fought then,
or being fought now is irrelevant:  thank you for your service.  

>From my perspective now some years after the fact, the very fact of your
service is far more important that the perfect or imperfect decisions that
made the fact of your service necessary.

Thank you.

Roger