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.’

Scott Truitt, of Seattle, Washington, says many Americans want to express their gratitude to members of our military, but most aren’t really sure how to proceed. He started the Gratitude Campaign in 2007, using a modified American Sign Language gesture for thank you to help him, and us, say thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

“I think there’s a lot of politics wrapped around the military and that can get confusing for a lot of people,” he said.

We hope his Gratitude Campaign will continue to spread across the country since its beginning in 2007. The idea is 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.