Thank You Carotek Veterans - November 11 2022

Thank You Veterans

A message from Stephen Bell, President

The United States of America has fought in twelve major wars since the American Revolution in 1775.

We have spent 75 years in conflict in all those wars. Twenty of those years were in Afghanistan.

We have lost one million, three hundred thirty-eight thousand, four hundred thirty-one lives in these wars. 1,338,431 lives. This does not count those who were wounded and many who were affected for the rest of their lives.

The costliest war of all was the Civil war where we fought our own brothers and families. We lost six hundred thousand lives in just five years of war. The US population at the time was only 31,443,000. The Civil War touched the lives of everyone in the country.

Today the United States has 1,388,100 Active-Duty Military personnel. The US population today is 332,403,650. Less than 1% of our population is Active-Duty Military. For comparison, Russia and China have 1,014,000 and 2,185,000 active-duty military personnel, respectively.

There are 19,000,000 Veterans if the US military today. Less than 10% of our population.

We are proud of those who have served, and we are here to celebrate them today. Veterans Day is a celebration of all who have served in our military in any capacity including those who are with us today and those who lost all for our benefit. On Memorial Day, May 30^th, we will honor the ones who gave all to serve our country. Those who perished to protect our freedom.

People often talk about the Men and Women of our military and the price they paid to serve. I look at them differently. I view them as our children who gave for our country. Because that is who we send to fight our wars. We send our children. Most just 18 to 23 years old. And many of them died on the battlefield, thinking about their moms, their dads, their families.

Please give thanks to your fellow Carotek associates who served for all of us. We are proud to have these Men and Women, for they are today, as a part of the Carotek family.