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Veterans' Sacrifices Remembered At Thanksgiving

November 22, 2006

WASHINGTON – As families reunite this week for Thanksgiving, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson asks all Americans to remember our nation’s armed forces serving in distant lands who cannot unite with their families.

Nicholson paid special tribute to the men and women of our armed forces defending liberty in today's Global War on Terrorism.

"Without their unbending resolve, their selfless courage and their incredible sacrifices, our way of life would be in daily peril at the hands of an enemy who openly and repeatedly vows to take us down," Nicholson said. “Let us not forget to thank their families, too.”

"And just as we give thanks for the blessings of today’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen, we give an equal measure of thanks to our nation’s 24 million living veterans. The service and sacrifice of America’s citizen-soldiers in every conflict of the 20th and 21st centuries have earned America’s unending gratitude," he said.

Nicholson also urged the nation to honor fallen veterans, "departed heroes who lived and served as though freedom’s very existence depended on them, because it did."

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Larry Scott