In a speech at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day in 1985, President Ronald Reagan acknowledged that we could never repay the debt of gratitude owed to our country’s veterans and that “all we can do is remember them and what they did and why they had to be brave for us.”

Our nation has been blessed with an abundance of brave men and women stretching back as far back in history as the citizen-soldiers armed with muskets in George Washington’s Continental Army and as recently as the soldiers armed with modern, high-tech weapons in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Veterans Day is a reminder that we need to express our deepest appreciation for the service and sacrifices made by the estimated 24 million veterans living in communities throughout our country today.

It is also a day to remember the heroic deeds of men and women of extraordinary character and courage — among them Joseph J. Frank.

Joseph enlisted in the Army at the age of 22 in February 1941 shortly after graduating with a psychology degree from Lebanon Valley College in Central Pennsylvania.