Coors Field, Denver, Colorado

Veteran's Day

My father was proud of his service to our nation in World War II but it wasn't until later in his life that he started sharing with me what it really meant to be a veteran of that war.

My siblings and I heard many stories of my father's friendships but we never really heard about the horror of what he experienced.  I remember a phone conversation I had with my dad about a year before he died.  It was the first time that he shared with me just a little of the ugly aspects of that conflict.

We're learning a great deal about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder through the men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a condition that has existed in every war.  For those of us who have not experienced war we will never understand the depth of terror related to it.

So, our thanks to our veterans can never be enough.

"And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.  Let them be a holy and living sacrifice--the kind he will find acceptable.  This is truly the way to worship him."  Romans 12:1 NLT

The sacrifice of our veterans is the picture of the sacrifice of self which is our act of worship.  Was my father scared when he served his country in the Philippines and New Guinea?  Absolutely.  Sacrifice can be frightening.  Living a life of sacrifice can be that way.

But it is the way of God.

Thanks vets, for your sacrifice and service.

(Click on picture to enlarge.)

Text and Photographs ©Copyright 2012 Douglas P. Brauner.  ARR.