The tenth anniversary of 9/11 got me thinking about sacrifice, about life changing events, about those who run towards danger to simply help someone. Someone they may not know. There were many heroes that day and as a result of that day many young men and women answered the call to serve this country.

Veteran’s Day is a couple of months off but sometimes something gets in your head and you can’t write about anything else until you’ve cleared the slate of the words that want to come out. I can “clear my slate” by simply putting words down but it’s not that simple for many of those who have served our country.

Veteran’s Day means something different to each of us. To some–to most, it means a day off from the work-a-day world that demands of our time and to others it’s an official day to remember people and events they will never forget. No matter how hard they try.

Jon Williams is a veteran of the war in Iraq where he served a 394-day combat tour as a Combat Engineer in the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division. Williams gave of his time and a portion of his life to be a part of something bigger than himself for many reasons. To honor a grandfather who fought in WWII, to do what his father was willing but unable to do during Vietnam, and to do something not everyone can or will do.

Williams is a friend of mine; an individual I am proud to call a friend for many reasons. One of those reasons being he unselfishly served his country during a time of war. He served for his country, he served for his family, but when all is said and done, he served for his “Combat Buddies,” the man to his right and the man to his left. Jon drove an armored track vehicle and many of the men to his right and to his left came home because he was good at what he did.

To say Jon “came home” is to over simplifying things. Jon came home physically but like any soldier who has seen combat and has stepped in front of and saluted the battlefield cross of a fallen comrade, a fallen friend, a part of them never did and never will come home.

The men we send off to battle are barely men and have scarcely had the time to define themselves in our civilized world of comforts and freedoms. They are young men doing what they have been trained to do the best way they know how. We don’t know what they’ve endured, we don’t know what they’ve seen, we don’t know and don’t understand, and we never will.

Knowing is their burden and trying to make sense of what they know may be an exercise in futility, but it is an exercise they will undertake often. Not thinking about it isn’t an option and trying to forget long enough to sleep through the night is all many of them strive for.

Too many of us think of the war veteran as a grizzled old man who fought a long past war we were taught about in high school history class. A war that’s outcome has been documented and studied by scholars leaving us with a sanitized compilation of facts, figures, and the occasional war hero.

There is war going on right now. A war, that at times, seems to be background noise and footnotes to our daily lives. This war hasn’t called upon us civilians to ration anything, to change or make sacrifices in our lives. But it has called upon some. It called upon my friend Jon, and like many others he answered. They answered, they served, and we must not forget any of them. We must not forget the sacrifices they have made; we must not forget those who have died, and we most certainly must not forget those who live.

Those who served and lived carry a burden we will never fully appreciate or understand. But we can honor them. We can support them. We can simply be there for them when they return to society. A society and idea they defended and tried to spread to those who don’t know, have never known freedom.

What we can’t do, what we shouldn’t do is expect them to return from an environment as hostile and unforgiving as war and slide seamlessly back into society. Our society is far removed from what they’ve experienced and endured and these young men/women, these veterans, need us to understand, need us to be there for them when they are ready for us to be there for them.

Serving one’s country during a time of war creates an inner debt that will never be paid in full. Honor those who have served, honor those who serve. They have given so much and ask so little.

Thank you, veterans.