Gratitude For Our Troops Sign Language Style--UPDATED

Gateway Pundit shares a way to show gratitude to our troops and it involves something near and now, dear, to my heart: sign language. I'm delighted that this amazing language is being used in such a great way:



Saying Thank you to the troops is easy. Gateway Pundit feels that this week will be especially challenging for our troops this week because of General Petreaus' testimony before Congress. It will be an opportunity for Congress Critters to express themselves. That's always dangerous. So the thank you sign will mean a lot to them:

The "Thank You" sign...

The sign we are using is intended to communicate "thank you from the bottom of my heart. "

To make the sign simply place your hand on your heart as though you're saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Then pull your hand down and out, bending at the elbow (not the wrist), stopping for a moment at about the belly button with your hand flat, palm up, angled toward the person you're thanking.

According to Norman Heimgartner, Ed.D., author of “Behavioral Traits of Deaf children” and former Professor of Education at the University of Puget Sound, this sign originated in France in the late 1700’s, and was published in “Theorie des Signes”, a dictionary of signs by the Abbe Sicard. The sign was brought to the United States in 1816 by the Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, founder of Gallaudet University, who later modified it to start at the chin rather than at the heart. That sign is now the standard sign for “thank you” in American Sign Language.

And, if you have a minute HERE is an easy way to express your gratitude to the troops in Iraq.

Freedom's Watch has more on the expected testimony this week by General Petraeus.

UPDATE: Great, just great! It turns out that this video has caused a stink in the Deaf Community. Well, the way to say thank you in ASL is to do the same hand and arm motion but come to come from the chin. This is an easy enough change and thing to do. Please watch the video, still, the intent is good, but substitute the proper sign when you see it done the wrong way. ASL is not English as hand signals. It is its own language, with it's own usage demands and own history. I knew that the sign was wrong in the video, but wrongly assumed the modification was specifically for the troops.

No, we don't want to tell the troops that "we give in". We want to tell them thank you. When I see a soldier, I just say thanks, but I'm not known for keeping my yapper shut, either.