Going the extra mile for veterans

I was talking to several of my friends who are veterans on Veterans Day.

I thanked them for their service to our country. Yet, ironically, several of them, unfortunately, were working on Veteran's Day.

How is it that many of our veterans still had to work on a national day off, a holiday essentially to honor them, those who fought for our country to provide freedoms for us, while most of us in our nation who are not veterans, got the day off and were either sleeping in, sightseeing, shopping or running errands?

To me, this seems absurd. And for those veteran friends of mine who had the day off, they weren't able to do a lot of the things they'd wanted to do on a day off (like go to the bank and post office for instance) because those businesses and many others were closed.

One friend in particular, a retired Army lieutenant colonel was waiting for a Veterans Day package but couldn't receive it, even though it was at his post office, he even had the slip to prove it.

To employers my friend says, "Make sure (to) go out of (your) way to make sure that the veterans are getting the things that they need this day. Even if only one employee is working to provide service to the veterans."

How cool it would have been for my friend to go to the post office, where one employee was working to solely serve our veterans?

If I worked at a bank, post office or any other business that is typically closed on Veterans Day, I would volunteer to be that one employee who'd serve our veterans on Veterans Day, wouldn't you?

If you are an employer, please make sure that next year and the years following your employees who are veterans have Veterans Day off.

I mean, come on, isn't that the least you could do to honor them? And if you are typically closed on Veterans Day, why not consider having one or two employees volunteer to work that day to provide services to our veterans.

Let's do everything possible in forthcoming years to follow Illinois Congressman Dan Lipinski's words, "On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind." Even in the workplace and especially on Veterans Day.

Cynthia Kimball is a professional speaker and trainer. She writes a column for weeklies' in southern Utah and is a southern Utah correspondent for Deseret News. She can be reached at kimball@every1counts.net. Her column, "Every1Counts," appears on deseretnews.com bi-monthly.