I had the occasion to experience three settings this Veterans Day that give me hope for the future and appreciation for the American people.

First a friend, Earl Spell, invited me to a Veterans Day program he started and maintains at his Georgia Power repair shop. It was a simple but meaningful event.

More than half of the 120 or so employees in the shop are veterans. They were nearly all there to hear the speaker, the 80-year-old father of one of the managers there.

This is a man who was drafted into the Army's airborne program in WWII and who jumped in on the first day of D-Day. He told an amusing story about how he found the only tree line within three miles of the coastline and landed in it. When he cut himself out of the harness he dropped 30 feet and popped his hip out of joint. He had to be shipped