Veteran: It's the very few who keep America -- and the world -- safe

In America, we have a population of 310 million people. The total U.S. military force is approximately 2 million soldiers and sailors. The entire U.S. population is protected by a military force equal to less than 1 percent of its population.

The world has a population of 6 billion people. The American population equals about 5 percent of the world population. Now take into account all of the great deeds the U.S. military accomplishes, the dictators that they have overthrown, the people they have liberated and the general world-policing that is accomplished. It is safe to safe the entire world population is protected by the greatest military force the world has ever known in the U.S. military -- which makes up less than .03 percent of the world population!

Some people would say these numbers are possible due to the technological advances in the U.S. military. While technology does play a factor, it is really the greatness of the American military men and women that help make the world a safe place. That is why it is great to be a veteran.

A veteran always stands up for the core values of America. It doesn't matter who the commander-in-chief is or which way the political winds sway, the military is there to uphold the Constitution. When people want to voice their opinion against America, it hurts. But we veterans stand there and remember that Americans have that right, and our fellow soldiers and sailors have died for that right. When citizens want to debate issues such as freedom of religion, we are glad for that debate. We have fought hard to maintain the debate.

We veterans are proud. It doesn't matter what engagements we have been in, what services we served in or our length of time we have served. We are all veterans and we are held to a higher expectation than the average citizen. When a veteran gets in trouble with the law, the first report in the media is "Joe Doe, a former soldier, got in trouble..." At no time will the media report "John Doe, a former landscaper, got in trouble..." This is because we are civil servants, for the people of America. We have taken the oath and we have core values. Just because we stopped serving in an official capacity, it does not mean this oath and these core values have vanished. This is who we are.

Veterans are perhaps the most intelligent, adaptable and most highly educated people I have ever known. They are able to adapt to situations that civilians can't comprehend. They have expertise in fields that most people would never think about. That is why the American military force is great.

I have been fortunate to be surrounded by great people. I served in the U.S. submarine force for 20 years from 1986 to 2006. I was a submarine sonar technician first class (E-6). While there are many books and many movies that display the technical advances in equipment, it is the knowledge and experience of the sonar technician that keep the water ways safe. I served on board the USS Minneapolis ST Paul, USS Spadefish and USS Toledo.

Some people have asked me, "Why do we even need a submarine force since the end of the Cold War?" the role of the submarine force is not just to track other submarines; it is to monitor the waterways. For instance, some drug runners will transfer drug cargo (or terrorists, cartel members, chemical weapons, etc.) in the middle of the ocean in order to avoid detection by the Coast Guard. No one would ever transfer cargo when there is a Spruance Class destroyer off your bow, but they would never know when a submarine is monitoring them.

That is just my very little small part of being a veteran. I have made many deployments and my family has made numerous sacrifices with me being away. But in the Navy, we put our priorities as: Ship, Shipmate, Self. Number one is the mission, next is our shipmates, only after that can we think about ourselves. It is that sacrifice that makes a veteran; it is that sacrifice that allows 1 percent of the U.S. population that keeps the world safe.