Who are your heroes? Your parents? A teacher? Even a friend? Depending on upbringing, family, and experiences, each person reading this can and probably does have vastly different heroes. Each person’s background is what determines their heroes and my background has sent me toward quite a few people I would consider heroes. Most of them I know personally and fall into categories I’ve mentioned already, but not all of my heroes are people I know. Possibly my biggest hero is not one individual, but many individuals. They are our soldiers. The men and women who, for many different reasons, decide to sacrifice several years of their lives to serve our country. In my eyes, that is worthy of being called a hero. But, as is often the case, heroism is not without its cost and many of those heroes come back scarred not only physically but mentally. And although awareness of this has increased over the past years, the treatment of and care for our veterans is still woefully lacking.

What our troops have experienced overseas is beyond what many of us (myself included) can even begin to comprehend and it can affect the mind in terrible ways. But what are we doing to help them? There’ve been quite a few attempts at giving them a hand, but even those seem to flunk. Just look at Wounded Warrior Project. They were possibly the most recognized group for helping vets with PTSD, a group with great ideals and admittedly a group that did a lot of good, but when it came down to it even they failed. Their leadership stole money intended for the vets and many vets that could have been helped weren’t. And although they did accomplish a lot of good things for veterans, they’re not the organization they were before. They are in a transition phase and who knows if they’ll ever return to the form they had before.

But now with them gone what are the vets getting then? Lip service? We have to more than just talking and it’s not going to be some big fancy organization that does what needs to be done. It’s going to be you and it’s going to be me. It’s going to take people, not businesses, who care enough about these veterans to not only tell them “thank you” but also to actually help. Our words are nothing if we can’t back them up.

So we need to do something. Now what? What can we do? That is for each of you (and me) to decide individually. Each vet we meet has different needs and each one of us can fill that need in a way that no one else can. So keep your eyes open for opportunities to help whether it be buying them lunch, paying for bus fare or just being will to sit and listen. The power of an open ear is not something to be overlooked.

So next time you see a veteran, say thank you. But don’t stop there. They deserve our thanks and our gratitude. Here’s to the Heroes.