Today, Thursday November 11th, is Veterans Day in America. Today we honor the veterans who have served in our wars. We lay wreaths and flowers at graves and monuments. If I can I will get a couple of photos of the wreaths laid in my town and post them here.

Most of us, on this one day, put our politics aside--whether we agree with each other politically or not, we feel that it is important to honor the people who served in our wars and our battles. This isn't really a festive day for us; we tend to spend time remembering the horror and wastefulness of war. It's more solemn; you would never wish someone a "Happy Veteran's Day" for instance.

Sometimes people with relatives who have served or died in America's armed conflicts (or veterans who have past service themselves) will take off work to attend reunions with their military units or to visit the graves of loved ones. It's not really considered polite to offer ideas or theories about America's foreign policies. It's a requiem for the dead and injured and those who have served more than it is for the policy makers who directed them.

There are many veterans in this country--most of them are from our wars in Viet Nam and things that happened afterwards--Grenada, Beirut, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait. Some veterans fought in Korea and occasionally there are people who fought in World War II or even World War I, although very, very few of these folks are left.

My point is, you never know when talking to someone if they are a vet themselves or if they have friends or relatives who are. It's a good day to keep politics out of your conversation.

You might have noticed that my last couple of blog posts have dealt with points of American culture. In the next blog post, I promise there will be a podcast. Until then, this is your friendly neighborhood ESL and Accent Reduction tutor, signing off! Goodbye.