"If you can read this, thank a teacher. If it's in English, thank a veteran." That message from my all-time favorite bumper sticker is particularly apt this week. Monday is Veteran's Day. The day before, November 10, was the 238th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Happy birthday, Marines. Thank you, veterans -- all of you.

During the past few years, regardless of where one stood on our military involvements, there has been a near unanimous outpouring of support and appreciation for our military. Those expressions of support, I fear, are occurring less frequently as so many are focused on worries about their jobs, their homes, vanishing retirement funds, and, now, their health insurance.

But we owe those servicemen and women no less now than we did when employment was high, homes were appreciating and life seemed pretty comfortable in the U.S.A.

A few years ago my wife and I were riding on a bus with a group of people who were the beneficiaries of what we called a "political event." It was sponsored by a state legislator. We were going to a ball game. On the bus was a person who was employed by a large, well known, California company. He was, essentially, a lobbyist.

We heard him chatting with people around him about some of his experiences as a pilot stationed on an aircraft carrier. Later, after the talk had died down, we asked him about his experiences. He was a naval aviator during the Vietnam War. We thanked him for his service.

He told us that we were only the second persons who had ever said that to him. The first was a South Vietnamese woman whose parents had immigrated to the United States. She was now working in a government-related job in Sacramento. Her family had lost everything in the war. She thanked him for what he had done and what he had made possible for her.

So what does all this have to do with real estate? Everything. In up markets and down, we still enjoy the right to own private property. There is still an American dream. There is a dream of home ownership, of getting ahead, and of making a future for the next generation. We've been in a rough patch for a while now; but the dream is still there, and still being realized in millions of lives. That dream is secure, because, all around the world, young American men and women are standing on a wall. They are putting their lives on the line to defend our country and our dreams. They are there because of the dream; and it endures because they are there.

Does what these people do actually mean anything to any of us? Ask Richard Phillips, Captain of the Mersk Alabama.

I hope the young men and women who wear the uniform won’t have to wait as long as our friend did before they hear a word of thanks. Please – walking down the sidewalk, waiting at an airport, shopping at the grocery store – if you have the opportunity, thank them for their service.