We have become used to having a high-quality military filled by dedicated young women and men willing to put their lives on the line for less money than Donald Trump hands out in tips every week. It is worth remembering how extraordinary and unusual our service members really are -- and how much we owe them this Thanksgiving.

In their post-Vietnam agony, all the services had trouble attracting recruits, and those who signed up tended to come from the bottom of the barrel.

By the 1991 Gulf War, those problems had evaporated and the first-rate military we know today had been created.