May is national Military Appreciation Month, an opportunity for veterans, active duty service members, and the American public to celebrate military service and honor the memory of all those who gave their lives for this country.

This month, Vets for American Ideals is partnering with our good friends at We Are the Mighty to tell the stories of some of the many veterans and active duty military personnel who inspire us every day. We’re thankful for their service, and that they are continuing to serve and stand up for American values and ideals.

By Joe Jenkins 

Ask any veteran who served overseas and they will tell you that our mission, and sometimes our lives, depended on the interpreters, translators, and other local allies of Iraq and Afghanistan. These allies stood alongside us—at great risk to their own lives and their families’.

We were taught to never leave anyone behind. Though we’ve taken off our uniforms, our service to this country and its values hasn’t ended. Neither did the promise we made to our allies.

For the last two years, VFAI has been fighting to keep that promise.

"When we talk about making America great again, veterans can do that through their service. We have an opportunity to use our sense of duty to improve our community and make our nation a more welcoming and fair place to live," says Chris Purdy, a U.S. Army National Guard veteran who served in Iraq and leader of the VFAI Atlanta team.

"I’d say to other veterans that the issues that VFAI believes in are the same issues that you believe in. And you can definitely play a role," says Colin Raunig, a U.S. Navy veteran and MFA student of fiction at Colorado State University.

Here’s another round-up of what we’ve been reading and watching this week, from the news and around the web:

"I have so much hope for our future when I look at our young people and see the multiracial society they are growing up in today. That’s the America I fell in love with when I was in the military, and that diversity is one of the things that makes our military, and our country, the most powerful in the world." Read more from Arti Walker-Peddakotla, a U.S. Army veteran and the daughter of immigrants from India.

Shannon Rhein is a former Army Medic who was wounded in action during a mortar attack in Ramadi in 2006. Today she serves by helping homeless families at a nonprofit in Texas. "Just because we came home and took that uniform off doesn’t mean that the United States stopped entrusting us with the responsibility to defend our country—and that includes what is happening here in our own neighborhoods."

By Colin Raunig

As a former E-6b Mercury Naval Flight Officer on Tinker Air Force Base, I never served with interpreters, but I know those who have. These interpreters, translators, and other local allies served alongside my friends who deployed into harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Col. Reed Bonadonna

By Colin Raunig

On Saturday, February 4^th I stood in solidarity with more than 9,000 other people at the  “Protect Our Muslim Neighbors” rally in Denver. I was emboldened by the numbers of in attendance and by the words of those who took the pulpit. One such person was an Air Force Officer veteran who spoke near the end of the event.