Military veterans' everyday missions mirror civilians' civic duties

Last year around this time, the U.S. Census Bureau reported a little more than 16 million living military veterans were in the United States. I’m one of them.

Like civilian society, what’s made so many of our contributions important is how ordinary they’ve been. It’s tempting to fixate on grand gestures, and make no mistake, plenty of veterans have made significant sacrifices to serve their country, even those who are still with us, but what’s just as essential is all the everyday work that so many folks in uniform do, simply to make things livable for their countrymen.

One trait many journali...