Veterans Day has come and gone, and with it, many of our heroes from the Second World War have since vanished and are continuing to have their ranks thin out as time catches up with them.
Younger veterans from Korea and Vietnam also have ranks that are thinning out.
The veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and those who served all over the Middle East and the world are plentiful. So, too, has been their suffering.
We have several hundred thousand American heroes who have lost arms and legs, who have suffered serious brain injuries, who made the ultimate sacrifice in so many ways other than death.
And we have Veterans Day, when the families and friends of those who have made sacrifices stop for a moment in their lives to commemorate those sacrifices, to remember the wounded and to praise the dead.
Not enough can be written about the meaning of sacrifice for our injured and war dead, and for those left to carry on without a father or mother.
Relatively few of us know what it means to sign our lives away to the armed forces of the United States of America.
Very few of us who haven’t served understand the meaning of loyalty, heroism and sacrifice.
In our minds here at the Leader Herald, those brave men and women serving our nation are all heroes who deserve our praise and our support.
And when they give the ultimate sacrifice, they deserve our remembrance for an eternity.
To do anything less is to insult the sacrifice they made.