IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE I WAS ON MY SOAPBOX.

as the title suggests I have not done a Soapbox rant in a while. So here goes nothing:
I read an article in my newspaper that made me think. I will post the article here as well.
We do not pay enought attention to the real heroes. so here is the article that I saw.
He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart . . .
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. — Shakespeare.
The Memorial Day holiday is over, the cookouts, the parades, the sales. But the memories remain.
There’s still time to listen to them.
My friend Dave, who served in Vietnam, passed along an e-mail his son wrote. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Dana Dennis, whose job title is 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division Targeting Officer, wrote it after watching LeBron James’ game-winning three-pointer in Game 2.
Dana has served in the military for 21 years, more than half his life. Dana is 39. He’s spent nearly 40 months in Iraq and Afghanistan. He ships out in August for another 12 months.
LeBron’s shot made him think about the true heroes he has met, friends he lost and how they blessed his life. In today’s world of fast fame, of American idols and sports figures we call kings, people forget the small folks who make great sacrifices for strangers they will never meet.
Dana wrote about the time he went to a celebration of paratroopers past and present with the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, N.C. He was a younger paratrooper then and had some equipment on display for the old-timers to look at. A World War II vet came by and tried to tell his story to anyone who would listen.
Dana watched the man stop by every display and leave as uninterested young men ignored him. Why not give a veteran 10 minutes of my attention, he thought.
After some small talk, the man started to tell Dana about the young rifleman he used to be. How he made that combat jump in the Normandy invasion, how he lost his best friend, how he saw his buddies drown in the flooded fields.
Then the man started to cry. “He said he didn’t understand why he was spared and his friends were taken. He hugged me and moved along to the next display.
“As I wiped the tears away, I thought to myself, ‘I just met a real hero.’ Not someone who shoots a basketball, or someone who makes millions acting in a movie, but someone who put our future ahead of his life.”
That line stopped me cold. Who put our future ahead of his life.
And all that guy wanted was for someone to listen.
It made me wonder how many vets we walk past daily. The old greeter at Wal-Mart who liberated a death camp. The hard-of-hearing uncle who spent the war as a POW. The frail man with the walker slowing us down in the grocery aisle whose shrapnel still slows him down.
All Dana asked was that we hear them.
“My children have friends who have lost a parent in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m sure many of you know someone who is serving or who has made this ultimate sacrifice,” he wrote.
“I have seen what this old-timer spoke to me about. I feel responsible, almost as a Soldier Ambassador to the average wonderful American,” Dana wrote. “It’s something you all should hear from time to time. I owe it to my friends who are not here to tell their story.”
And we owe it to them to listen, more than one day in May.