Veteran's Day should be more than one day a year, but we just don't seem to have that kind of attention span. Every veteran—every service member—deserves a standing ovation for what they're willingly offering the rest of us, regardless of what that service has actually cost them. But, right now, I want to make a special point about French veterans.

The French military is pretty much the butt of every joke in which it appears. Some of these jokes are sort of hilarious (google "French military victories" and hit "I'm feeling lucky"), but they are all unfair. Americans in particular seem to have a thing for talking about all the times we "bailed them out."

Okay, yeah, we kind of did, maybe, a couple times, if your understanding of history is limited to what you learned in an American eleventh grade US History class (fun fact: I got a 4 on the AP US History exam (1) without taking the class; and (2) even though I had to leave an hour early to sit for a different exam). But what all of these jokes underscore is the fact that the French have been in the middle of every damn thing. Take World War II, for example. Did we seriously help out? Yes, we did. We pitched in that last 10% of helping the Allies liberate Europe from German control. While I'm assigning arbitrary numbers, let's say that the UK handled 25% of handing Hitler his ass in France. You know what the French did? EVERYTHING ELSE.

Even thinking of the French role in the world wars primarily as having been "bailed out" acknowledges that the French got hit harder and faster than the countries doing the bailing. Looking down on France for needing help against Germany would be like sneering at the Rebel Alliance for needing Han Solo. Han Solo is awesome, but, in this analogy, the French are the Jedi, or the X-Wing pilots.

The thing to take away from this is that Luke Skywalker is clearly French.

I'm never really in a serious mood.

Next year's essay: "Hand Poland Its Wallet: It's The One That Says 'Bad Motherfucker.'"