America's war veterans come in many sizes, shapes, and ages, and their collective experience spans two world wars and several foreign conflicts, from following war mules through Flanders Field to landing on the beaches of Normany, facing the cold of Porkchop Hill, and trudging the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta. Despite differences in makeup and experience, they share a common bond, a brotherhood of memory and hard-won wisdom that helps define their character. A veteran rises first as the flag passes on the 4th of July and sits last, having witnessed the blood and tears that make this and other paradises possible. A veteran is a man of peace, soft-spoken, slow to anger, and quick to realize that those who speak most of war's glory often know the least of its horror. He does not joke about war, because he has seen the wounded and dying, the widows and orphans, and knows firsthand that no war is good and that the only thing worse than war is slavery. He is a friend to all races, begrudging none, and carries the knowledge that the enemy is not the man across the battle line but enslavement and false ideologies, so that those once faced in battle may now be esteemed as brothers. Above all, a veteran loves freedom, takes pride in the freedom of others, and, though his motto is live and let live, would answer the call to duty again rather than choose servitude, because above all else a veteran is an American.