Photo Credit: the gratitude campaign

Here's a wonderful idea: many Americans want to express their gratitude to members of our military, but most aren't really sure how to proceed, so Scott Truitt came up with a simple and heartfelt gesture that would do it:

King5.com,
23 Sep 2007,
Seattle man starts 'Gratitude Campaign' to thank soldiers

"For several years I've been walking up and saying thank you to them when I've see them and sometimes its a really comfortable situation, and sometimes its not so comfortable," he said.

So he decided it would be nice to simply have a gesture to say thank you quickly and comfortably.

"The sign language sign for thank you starts at the chin and we thought geez, if you don't know what this means, you might not take it kindly. And that's certainly not the message we wanted to send," he said.

After a little research, he came up with a new idea.

"The gesture starts with your hand on your heart as if you're about to do the Pledge of Allegiance. And then you just bring the hand down and out in front of you. It actually means thank you from the bottom of my heart," he said.

Truitt hopes his Gratitude Campaign will spread across the country, and says even if soldiers don't know exactly what the gesture means, they'll realize if it originates on the heart, its got to be good.