I know that I can never really know what it must be like to serve overseas in the military. How in the world can a person survive mentally and emotionally in a situation where they are subject to traumatic injury, even death, at a moment's notice every minute of every day? When you see a movie where soldiers attack an enemy position, knowing that most of the people they're with will die before they get there, it's hard to realize that that is happening in real life EVERY DAY to people just like me.
No, not like me. The people who do this are special people, a cut above. These people put their personal lives on hold for an ideal, an image. They believe that the concept of America is worth whatever sacrifice is required to preserve it. Over there, it doesn't matter whether a person is Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, black, white, or green. They don't worry about who the President is, just that there IS one. They do what has to be done for the America that, as imperfect as it is, stands for freedom, opportunity, justice, liberty, and peace.
And they don't have to be deployed to serve and sacrifice. Even those here at home are subjected to stresses and such that would kill anybody else.
Most people I know appreciate our military. Everyone says "Thank a soldier." And that's good, I know service members who say that it really does mean something to them to hear those thanks. But try and put yourself in their boots, and try to understand what emotions they have to overcome and suppress in order to serve. I think that may help you gain an even better appreciation. If politicians did it, it may solve many issues in the world.
Think about kneeling behind a wall in a foreign country, bullets whizzing all around from people trying to kill you. Your heart is racing from adrenaline. Sweat is pouring down your face, into your eyes. There are ten friends over there in the same situation. Only YOU can save their life. You have to stick yourself around the side of that wall and kill the enemy before they kill you. The odds are against you, and you know it. You take a deep breath, and start to move.
I honestly don't know how they do it.
Please know that we who have served (now recently retired) do very much appreciate that there are those of you who even TRY to understand our lives. I have always been fortunate that the National Guard units I was a member of were not deployed into combat, though I was never not ready to go. I have known many friends who have gone - most came back, a few did not.
ReplyDeleteReading your blog shows a sincere desire to understand and to thank, and I, for one, would like to take one brief instant to say to my brother what I have said to strangers: "I am proud to serve, sir. Thank YOU for your support."
People like you make people like me proud.
SFC Paul McNeeley (ret)