Footballguys Daily Email - Volume 10, Issue 36 (Monday, May 25th)

Hi Folks,

Happy Memorial Day to you.

I make three exceptions a year when I send a non football email: Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day. Today is a day that we in the U.S. recognize and remember our Veterans.

Specifically on this day, we remember our Veterans who are no longer with us. It's a chance for us to honor them. And to honor their families.

For you guys who are not U.S. citizens, thanks for your patience and please indulge me here. Memorial Day is a big deal for us.

It's easy for the true meaning of this day to get lost in the excitement of Summer starting and cookouts and picnics. But please don't lose sight of the day's real significance. Many of the things we'll enjoy today, we're enjoying because those before us made selfless sacrifices.

As I always do on Memorial Day, I'm including some words by Father Dennis Edward O'Brien below. It's the same one I send on Veterans day and while Memorial Day is a little different, the big picture idea is the same.

If you know a Veteran or a family member of a Veteran, take thirty seconds and say "thanks". It'll go a long ways. Trust me. To all our Footballguys readers and their families who are honored today, we salute you and say "Thank You."

Happy Memorial Day.

Joe Bryant and David Dodds

Owners, Footballguys.com

WHAT IS A VET?

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.

What is a Vet?

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 protester to burn the flag."

Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC