Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by The Gospel Coalition in 2021.

“Thank you for your service,” they say, as they shake our hands and pat our backs.

We smile and thank them for expressing their gratitude and try to think of something else to talk about. These encounters with strangers happen from time to time, but especially on Veterans Day. It’s the one time we can count on civilians—a group from which we came but can never fully return—to think about us.

On Veterans Day, they think of the men and women who march in the VFW parades. They think of their grandfathers, the gregarious World War II sailors, eager to share sea stories, and their uncles, stolid Vietnam-era airmen reticent to talk about the war. They think of the aunt who served in Iraq and the neighbor’s son who recently returned from Afghanistan.

They think of us when they see us in airport terminals, young soldiers and Marines, receiving our teary-eyed parents’ welcome-home embrace as we return from recruit training. They think of us when they see us on airport tarmacs, older soldiers and Marines, kissing our runny-nosed kids goodbye as we leave for missions of peacekeeping or warmaking.

They think of us as we are in the movies: marching off to war with stoic resolve and assaulting beachheads with quiet determination. They think of us aligned on parade grounds, weapons and uniforms sparkling in the sun, postures the very picture of discipline.

They think military service is about combat and heroism and uncommon acts of valor.

But there are things a veteran knows.

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