Editor’s note: For Veterans Day, we wanted to repost this piece from August about a phenomenal documentary, The Way We Get By, which premieres tonight on PBS. A few updates:

-The filmmakers have launched an incredible partner site, Returning Home: Mosaic of Support, which allows users to express support for the troops by uploading personal photos, videos, audio and written messages. You can contribute here.

-Congratulations to the filmmakers, Aron Gauet and Gita Pullapilly, who were married last month. Read their story, and how the film came to be, in the NYT announcement here.

-Here’s the review posted by our film blogger Gina after she screened it at the Nantucket Film Festival in June.

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Meet the “troop greeters,” three senior citizens who have made it their personal mission to thank returning and departing soldiers.

Equipped with Thank You signs, handshakes, and hugs, Jerry, Joan, and Bill are often the first faces soldiers see as they step off the plane and perhaps the only thank-you that some soldiers get. And they never miss a flight. This is the premise of the emotionally-charged film The Way We Get By.

As the story expands beyond the airport, it becomes a painful and necessary reminder of how our culture often casts aside not only our soldiers, but also our elderly.

For six years the greeters have welcomed over one million soldiers into a tiny airport in Maine, but outside the airport, they’ve independently struggled with loneliness, poor health, and the isolation that often comes with aging. Trailer after the jump.

The Way We Get By - Trailer from The Way We Get By on Vimeo.