Who are the Veterans of the US? Movers, shakers, presidents, teachers, writers, dreamers, all ethnicities and any gender. They are also the homeless, the ill, the disposed, and the unemployed.

It sounds like something JRR Tolkien might have penned as a day of destiny, the end of a quest, an hour set aside for magical powers and the alignment of planets foretelling the future or – as it does – immortalizing the past.

The poppy is associated with service to one’s country and is used to commemorate those who died fighting for their county. If you are from a generation after WWII, you may recognize the symbol but have you given much thought as to why that particular flower was used?

Overall, I like the new US Department of Veterans Affairs website. The appearance is clean, young, vital, and energetic without being overwhelmingly bureaucratic or formidable.

The Mary E. Walker House is a residential transitional facility to provide help and support for our women veterans. The key point here is the veteran must make a personal commitment to take charge of her own life. Here's a chance for you to help, too.

They are not someone else’s son or daughter, they are not fellow soldiers tortured beyond sanity by the things they have experienced, they are not actually “us”, they are “them” – the homeless.

Six years from Women's Army Auxilliary Corps to the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, and a short thirty years until a gender-unified military: a phenomenally brief time in the span of human history.

Sign up to receive the Veterans Newsletter by email. No mess, no spam, no 'please buy this' nonsense. I will post a question of the week, a favorite military saying or anecdote, and links to my newest featured article.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the COBOL That saved a mess like these 010101001000111101011011 Now computing is such a breeze!

We all yearn for peace, but as long as we cannot control what goes on around the world, our gifts of love do make a huge difference in the lives of our military families. When they learn of our existence, a large group of Americans who care about their loss, that in itself is comforting. C.Haggerty