I hope you'll keep posting. I've been reading your blogs, and they're good. Thanks for citing your sources too.

It is beyond words to explain this pride I feel,
This pride that any loved one of a veteran feels.
Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, Seamen, veterans,
Fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, siblings,
Sons, daughters, boyfriends, girlfriends.
It is not easy, loving a combat veteran,
It is difficult to watch them haunted.
Shadows on rooftops, sounds thundering in the background,
Faces in the crowd, demons in their dreams.
It is not easy, loving a combat veteran,
It is difficult to find the words.
They are alive, yet their brothers/sisters are not,
But somehow their fates remain intertwined.
They are our freedom fighters,
Yet we don't recognize them nor honor them when the uniform comes off.
Their senses return them to hell,
Yet they forever remain protective of us, even from themselves.
It is not easy, loving a combat veteran,
But it is not easy sacrificing everything for their country either.
The burdens we place on their shoulders, they carry without complaint.
They do not see a hero when they look in the mirror.
But they are our knights,
They are our hope,
They walk up to the gates of hell,
So your family as well as mine, is not destroyed by its flames.
The pride I feel, I keep within.
The pride I feel, is earned.
The pride I feel, is the honor that not only do I love this soldier,
But that he lets me know the man beyond the uniform that exists due to the uniform.
Thank you to the Armed Forces, for your service grants me the privilege of freedom.