We Salute Our Veterans!

**We're Saluting Our Veterans**

Happy Veteran's Day, coming up on November 11th!

As a family of Veterans we hold this day dear to our hearts...

"The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."

~General Douglas MacArthur~

Starting with the most recent Veteran, we salute my brother!

My brother is the most recent Veteran, serving 2 tours in Iraq.  He is now stationed at West Point, NY with his wife and three children.  We salute his heroic military wife as well.  She gave birth to their second child without my brother by her side, while he was deployed to Iraq!  They are an outstanding Veteran Team.

(My brother is pictured here with my 2 oldest sons on the Army Football Field at West Point)

The flag is honored at all Army Football games...Go Army!

My husband was in the Marines so we have 2 Veteran's honored here!

~"Semper Fi" and "This We'll Defend"~

(Marine and Army Mottos)

This is my husband on the left pictured with my brother in the middle with our 2 oldest sons during their visit to New York.

And don't forget our National Motto:

"In God We Trust!"

I don't have any pictures scanned from my own Army Days so I just took a picture from my scrapbook!

These are photos from the 1st Gulf War in 1990...Gotta love the camel.

~Saudi Arabia and Iraq~

I was married to my late husband at the time, also a Veteran of the same war...

~His father was also a Marine~

Fianlly, we salute the 2 oldest Veterans in our family...my two living Grandfathers.  This is my fraternal grandfather who served in the Army, just prior to WWII.

This is a current photo of my fraternal grandfather, now 90 years young!

I was unable to get ahold of any pictures of my maternal Grandfather and his military service in time for this year.

*Mental note for next year!*

My maternal Grandfather is slightly younger than my fraternal Grandfather and he served in the Navy during WWII.

He was stationed in the South Pacific with 2 of his brothers during this war.

I can't imagine the aching heart of their Mother who watched and waited for those 3 sons to come home safely! (And by the grace of God they did)

Hence we also salute the families of all service personnel for their courage to endure their own sacrifices here at home, just like my sister-in-law.

It is with a grateful heart that we thank all Veterans and their families

for defending our freedom.

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."

~Daniel Webster~

Thank a Veteran by passing on the list of places that are offering free meals and other services!

~Melanie from Homestead & Bread posted a list~

Operation Gratitude is a wonderful site to visit if you'd like to do something concrete for our troops.  This site is constantly posting a variety of ways to get involved by sending letters or packages overseas to our soldiers.

Our Sunday Visitor is praying for our troops.  You many join in or

submit prayer requests at their site.  There also some beautiful Christian prayers at this site

called Faithful Cross.

That Resource Site  has a lovely post about Veteran's Day and The Veteran's Administration also has a teacher's site.  I linked up here to the K-5th grade.  They also have a 6-12 grade link. 

This Apples4theteacher link  has some great ideas for your social studies unit!  I also loved the poetry for memory or copy work.  This was one of the poetry samples that I liked:

Veterans Day

by Cheryl Dyson

On Veterans Day we honor all,

Who answered to a service call.

Soldiers young, and soldiers old,

Fought for freedom, brave and bold.

Some have lived, while others died,

And all of them deserve our pride.

We’re proud of all the soldiers who,

Kept thinking of red, white and blue.

They fought for us and all our rights,

They fought through many days and nights.

And though we may not know each name,

We thank ALL veterans just the same.

"Be alert to give service. What counts a great deal in life is what we do for others."

~Anonymous~

*God Bless America and the Veterans who

defend her, past, present and future*

Click on this beautiful song and video of

A Soldier's Prayer

(Scroll down to the bottom right of my blog to turn off the blog background music if both are playing at the same time)  I apologize for not being blog-savvy... I don't know how to get the blog music to stop internally!