November 11, 2004

Silvia Rich, who was liberated by U.S. soldiers when she was an infant in Italy, applauds during ceremonies before the Veteran's Day Parade in New York, November 11, 2004. Now a New Yorker, Rich joined thousands lining the Fifth Avenue parade route to salute vets.



Wendy Whaling of Cedar Hill, Texas, holds a sign of appreciation as soldiers march by during the Veterans Day parade in downtown Dallas, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004.

Thank you, ladies!
Your signs say it all.
(And I'm so proud that Dallas has such a nice Vets' Day parade!)
How can we adequately thank each and every one of our vets for preserving the blessings of liberty with their very lives and blood?
We owe you owe gratitude and our remembrance for your sacrifice--from the farmer turned militiaman in rags at Valley Forge with George Washington to the men and women of the 1st I-D in Fallujah today.

Eight-year-old Jozef Brumback holds a sign thanking veterans while watching a Veterans Day parade in Las Vegas, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004.

I hope that this Veterans' Day was a little less bitter for our Vietnam Vets, thanks to the efforts of the Swiftboat Vets, who exposed the lies about Vietnam perpetrated by John Kerry, Jane Fonda and their fellow travellers in the "anti-war" movement that our troops were "baby killers" and "war criminals."
I hope that the defeat of traitor Kerry at the polls helped give them the victory parade they never got when they came home.
We may have "given up" in Vietnam, but by our military actions there, we stopped the spread of Communism in Asia considerably and all you vets fought just as bravely and answered the call of your country just as dutifully as any of our other soldiers in other conflicts.
Both the Vietnam vets and the veterans of the Korean conflict are often unsung and this should end on our part;
with our eyes being frequently drawn to the Korean peninsula by Kim Jung-Il's nuclear saber-rattling, we should remember that the Republic of South Korea enjoys the freedom and prosperity it does today because of our soldiers who shed their blood for that freedom in 1950-53.
God bless you all for your service in the defense of Freedom around the world and here at home!