WHAT IS A VETERAN?

By Lonnie Henderson

He is a transplanted Yankee growing peppers in a small town in Texas.
He is a skinny teenage sailor terrified about the invasion of Japan who turned into a Hall of Honor member and the oldest SOB.
He is a construction supervisor chomping on a cigar.
He is a political pundit with a defribrilator.
He is a Miata-driving Georgia cracker.
He is a retired librarian who is so far left he might fall off the edge of the earth.
He is the mouth of the south with an award-winning chili recipe.
He is Bubba with a century in the sky.
He is an Alabaman with his own brand of Moman Gold beer.
He is a retired postal worker from Florida, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wisconsin.
He is a Cherokee hiding in the hills of New England.
He is Dikhij Zver' who wants to retire to Oklahoma.
He is a wine afficianado from Maryland, and another from Illinois.
He is a house husband and forum moderator.
He is a Comanche from Oklahoma.
He is a financial advisor and perpetual galley and trash man.
He is a railroad man. He is a Frog from Idaho.
He is a big guy from Missouri.
He is Combat Ron and the Blazer and WLYC and the Silver Fox and Tonto and Pitstop.
He is seventeen C-130 crewmembers.
He is an Eagle, soaring the skies in perpetuity.
We have met the veteran and he is us.

Lonnie lives in Anadarko, Oklahoma - The cultural center of the entire southwest, if not the known universe.