Illiad has been running a series on his UserFriendly comic strip about veterans. It started on Monday and has continued thus far through today.
You can read each one in turn by clicking "Next Cartoon" on the pencil bar.
It's not about the current conflicts. It's about the sacrifices veterans have made and the sacrifices their families have made when those veterans paid the ultimate sacrifice. It's a reminder that the luxuries, privileges, and freedoms we may have in this society were not without great cost. His storyline captures the cost better than anything I can say. All I have to add is, "You are not forgotten. Lest we forget."
On a historic note, the gravestone for Wednesday refers to the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion and gives a date of June 6, 1944, D-Day. This unit was attached to the British 6th Airborne Division and dropped prior to the amphibious landings on the beaches as the 6th had key objectives to remove batteries which could fire on landing troops and capture bridges in-land. The Canadian activities are detailed here. If you want to know how bad the fighting was, all you need to do is look at the casualty count from the order of battle (Went in: 543 Died: 84 Wounded: 162 Missing: 101).
