Every year in the United States, a holiday is celebrated that is dedicated to our veterans who served to defend our freedom and liberties. We honor their sacrifice by ceremonies, awards, and for some our restaurants here in Lenoir City, discounts on food.

These restaurants include Hardee’s, who offered a 10% discount to all veterans and active duty service members with proper I.D. Chick-fil-a offered a free chicken sandwich to our veterans.

At Chili’s, veterans got to choose from seven meals off of a special Veterans Day menu that was available from 11 a.m to 5 p.m. Then at Cracker Barrel, veterans received a free Double Chocolate Fudge Coca-Cola Cake with 10% of sales going to the USO Transition 360 Alliance.

Naturally, there are more deals out there for veterans– as every restaurant wants to honor them and what they gave. This list is only scratching the surface.

Many consider it noble what these restaurants are doing to honor our veterans on this national holiday, but some feel that it should be like this year-round and not on a national holiday.

Kelly Isbill (11) is among these people who share this opinion.

“During Veteran’s Day more people give discounts, but on normal days they don’t give them anything,” Isbill said.

Isbill speaks from experience as her father is a retired veteran, and because of this he does not get many discounts.

“It’s not enough, they don’t offer discounts to retired veterans, just active,” said Isbill.

With this idea do we really honor veterans when it is not a holiday? Do restaurants and companies honor all veterans on this day because it is expected of them, and then just exclude to active duty after the holiday has passed?

We all should honor veterans every day, and to every veteran– not just active duty, but to those suffering from PTSD, those who are retired, and those who are no longer with us.

We need to honor them because the price of freedom is not free, and veterans are there willing to pay our bill.

Sources: militaryandveterandiscounts.com’s list of discounted restaurants on Veteran’s Day, wgntv.com’s list of discounted restaurants on Veteran’s Day, and crackerbarrel.com’s Veteran’s Day deal.