The Best Veteran

Yesterday was Veteran's Day, and so I would just like to give a shout out to my daddy who served faithfully and willingly in the US Air Force as a Chief Master Sergeant for 32 years.

My daddy is the most amazing person to me. I love him with all my heart and I love the example of hope, strength, courage and love he is to me. When I was two years old, my daddy retired and we moved back to the states from our home in England. My daddy was able to attend every soccer game, piano recital, vocal recital, dance recital, musical, play and anything else that I did in my scholastic career. These were things that he missed out on for my brothers and sisters because of his selfless service in the Air Force. I was truly blessed and my daddy always says that God gave him another chance to be a good daddy with me. But little does he realize that he is the best daddy God could have given me and my siblings to. I have such a great appreciation for my siblings for going through their lives whilst my dad was at war, or was away on assignments. I grew up with my daddy always there, being able to fix my boo-boo's, being able to go to Eagles (which is Lowes now... see how old I am?) and get a polish sausage, daddy used to drink Fresca and so I always wanted to drink Fresca, he was able to always fix my toys when they broke and I think most importantly to me, he was always there to give me a Daddy's blessing.

Two weeks before I got married to my best friend, who I chose because I knew that he would make a good daddy, my father had a heart attack and had to have an emergency quadruple by-pass. When my mother texted me telling me that he was in the ER, I broke down. Not my dad. My dad was always strong, and now all of a sudden, he was so close to being gone. It was so hard to be in the ICU and watch him be in so much pain; because all my life he'd been the one to tell me that everything would be ok, and that I would be fine when I got hurt. I tried to be strong like my mother in front of everyone, but at night I would cry. And then after all was done, and he was home the day of my wedding came. And I went upstairs and I got a Father's Blessing from my wonderful Daddy. As amazing as everything was that day, the two highlights of the day were 1) getting married to my sweetheart and being sealed together for time and all eternity, and 2) getting a Father's blessing and having him be a witness at my marriage.

My dad has been all over the world, and he's brought me presents from wherever he's been, and he tells me stories about his adventures in far off lands. But the best part about his stories is that he survived his stories and he survived his adventures and he is right there with me to tell me about them later. He is the best Veteran to me mainly because he's my daddy... and he's awesome.