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? They are the cops 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. They are the barroom loudmouths, 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. They are the nurses who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang. They are the POW who sent away one person and came back another -- or didn't come back at all. They are the Quantico drill instructors who have never seen combat -- but have saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's back. They are the parade -- riding Legionnaire who pins on ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand. They are the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass them by. They are 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 unrecognixed with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep. They are the old person bagging groceries at the supermarket -- palsied now and aggravatingly slow -- who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that their spouse were still alive to hold them when the nightmares come. They are an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being -- a person who offered some of their life's most vital years in the service of their country, and who sacrificed their ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs. They are a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and they are 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! Remember November 11th is Veteran's Day.