Now that the election is behind us, I’d like to offer an important bipartisan proposal: Let’s put politics behind us this Veterans Day to honor all of those who’ve ever donned a uniform to defend our country. Their selfless sacrifice allows us to form a more perfect union and to endure in the face of adversity.

This Veterans Day, when I lift up my prayer of thanks for our men and women in uniform, I’ll be thinking of one in particular: Marine Corps Master Sgt. Dan Kamanao.

When Sgt. Dan first arrived in Vietnam, his commanding officers told him to keep his head down – literally. Still a couple weeks shy of his 18th birthday, he was technically too young for combat.

To say he grew up fast as a Marine in Vietnam would be an understatement. Like so many others, he soon found himself deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

After sustaining wounds in one battle, they loaded him onto a medevac for evacuation. But his chopper took incoming fire and crashed.

That left only one Marine to stop the onrushing enemy: a wounded Sgt. Dan.

To the Viet Cong, it probably looked like an easy kill. Here was a downed chopper defended only by a lone Marine armed with a couple of M16s and a few grenades.

But they didn’t know Sgt. Dan.........

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