Veterans Day is tucked in between Halloween and Thanksgiving with Christmas on its heels.

It's not the unofficial start to summer, and some may not even know it's a holiday. But it is.Veterans Day honors the men and women who have served in military service, both living and deceased.Henry Desrosiers, director of the Carbon County Veterans Affairs, said, "The word 'veteran' is an honored title, which must be earned by one's military service. It labels men and women from all walks of life and backgrounds who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms. … Their spirit must never be forgotten, overlooked or underestimated."Desrosiers was the featured speaker at a Veterans Day brunch and program on Tuesday at the Village of Palmerton Senior Living Community. The center's administrator, Terri Koch, said they have hosted the program for six years. They just wanted to do something nice for the veterans, she said.Norm Sheckler and his wife, Letitia, have attended many of the programs.It was "beautiful, really nice. Me and my wife really enjoy it," he said.Sheckler had enlisted in the U.S. Army National Guard in 1958. To him, Veterans Day means that they "kept the country safe, and the people away from harm."Charles Behler Jr. served in the 24th Infantry Division from 1961-64. He said he hopes Veterans Day helps people become more aware of what veterans did for our country.Behler worked in the division's headquarters in Augsburg, Germany, during the height of the Cold War. The tension was exacerbated in October 1962, when the United States discovered that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had nuclear weapons moved to Cuba. This became known as the Cuban missile crisis.Because of small nuclear weapons close to where Behler was working, he and the other servicemen were told that their life expectancy was 21 minutes."Imagine being only 19 years old and being told that," Behler said.The crisis was averted when President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev came to an agreement to have the weapons removed from Cuba and returned to the Soviet Union, and the U.S. would remove its missiles from Italy.Although he never saw combat, Behler said the combat training and the use of live ammunition still haunted his dreams. He saw a grenade go off in a man's hand and gas cause another man to throw up when he couldn't get his mask on fast enough. It's only been about four or five years since the nightmares have stopped, he said."And I didn't have to kill anyone," he said. "Can you imagine what some of these guys sitting here from WWII and the Korean War have seen?"Behler said he's concerned about our soldiers today being sent overseas, returned and deployed a second, third or fourth time."One tour is enough," he said. "When these boys come back, they're never the same."Military training prepares a person for combat. That's a far different atmosphere than what they return to in the civilian world. Without receiving some counseling to readjust, it's very difficult to make the switch, Behler said.Despite all that he has seen and all that he has had to live with upon returning to home, Behler said he would go again."There's a sense of pride of being an American," he said.In Desrosiers' speech to the veterans, he closed with a quote from G.K. Chesterton."The true soldier fights not because he hates what's in front of him, but because he loves what's behind him."