Tony Casenelli, U.S. Navy. Seymour Baer, U.S. Navy. These are names of people who risked their lives for our country. If they had been called out to war, they would have gone. They were not killed, but they still risked everything to keep us safe.

Giving your only doughnut to a friend and sleeping on the floor so that your visiting cousin can sleep on a bed are sacrifices, but try imagining making the ultimate sacrifice. Tony Casenelli, a Vietnam War Veteran, volunteered for the Armed Forces. He told me that it was something that he had wanted to do his whole life. Tony did not lose his life in the war, but he gave up years of his youth to fight. He sacrificed true contact with his mother for the two years when he was in Vietnam. To keep from worrying her, he sent fake letters to her. Although she knew that he had joined the armed forces, she did not know that he was stationed in Vietnam. Mr. Casenelli sent one letter in an envelope that he sent to a friend in the U.S. That soldier then sent the letter on to Tony Casenelli’s mother. At my camp, I am homesick, even though I am having fun. If I were sad, I could write a letter, or if I really needed to go home, I could. Tony, and other men and women who joined the Armed Forces often waited weeks or even months to receive contact from their friends and family. In war, other, harder sacrifices are made. Tony saw his partner – soldiers in the U.S. Navy are trained that way - killed in battle. Then, once he was gone, his friends and family had to accept that he would not return. The families had to accept that life would go on. Their lives could go on in peace and safety because their beloveds had sacrificed. In Tony Casenelli’s words, “On Veteran’s day you can walk up to a veteran and say thank you for his or her service. The people we honor on Memorial Day are past that. You can’t say thank you to them… and you can’t say thank you enough.” It would be impossible to thank them if they have died. That makes even more crucial for us to thank the soldiers who made it through their terms because they knew that they too could have lost their lives. I have never fought for anything more serious than what color my living room couch is, but I still appreciate all that a war is.
Thanks to all of the veterans in the world I don’t have to hide under my desk during nuclear bomb drills, as Americans had to do during the 1950s and 60s. I can live confidant that the men who fought did a good job. So in a nutshell, I think that we must thank our veterans because they risked all so that they could give us all.