About two weeks ago i had the great good fortune to meet a man we're going to call Sgt. K (i didn't ask him if he minded me writing about him). Since that time i have spoken to him a few times for about an hour or so each time and i am beginning to get an idea of who he is ... and he is someone we should all know.
Sgt K. is an active duty soldier in the United States Army and is part of a special group of men in OUR army that is called upon to do dangerous things as part of a small group on a regular basis. He travels to strange, far away places and risks his life so that you may have one ... so that you can be free ... do you understand what i am saying? Sgt K is a human being just like you and i, he goes places that neither you nor i want to go and once there he does things that neither you nor i want to do ... he allows himself to be shot at, bombed, land mined cursed at and spat at by locals ... when he is not in this country (which is often) he is literally the target of many men who want to hurt our country, who want to hurt you and your children, and while there Sgt K stands between those men and you. He, and soldiers like him, allow them selves to be shot at so that you can go through your day and not be shot at.
Have you forgotten that we are at war? Have you forgotten that we are fighting a war against an enemy that would like nothing more than to bring the battlefield here to the United States? The men and women of OUR Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have not forgotten, Sgt K has not forgotten. Right now he is here and safe, but soon he will go, only too willingly, to a strange place and defend you to his dying breath. Is there anyone in your life that you would die for? Your children? Your spouse? Siblings? Parents? How about Martin Yelig of Kansas City? Would you die for him? Who is he you might ask ... i have no idea, he is just one of the strangers that OUR soldiers fight and die for.
Sgt K met my children a day after we met, and today he told me, in no uncertain terms, that when it is time for him to go off to a foreign battlefield and fight he does so with a sense of duty knowing that MY children need to be protected from this enemy. He has seen what these people do to the children in their own country and would die before he would let the children in OUR country suffer the same fate. Your children.
So i ask you an important question ... by a show of hands, how many of you thank OUR soldiers when you see them? How many of you have taught your children of the great sacrifices made by the men and women in OUR Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force? Are you proud of them? I am and was, but i must tell you with all honesty that meeting Sgt K has shed light on the inadequate way i appreciate OUR soldiers.
When the "boys" came home from chasing dictators around the globe in 1945 and 1946 there were massive crouds waiting to greet them and thank them, and rightfully so ... in the 1970's when OUR soldiers came home from SE Asia they were mistreated by the very people they went to defend because we allowed media outlets to tell us that OUR soldiers were bad people doing bad things, crouds waited to boo them ... and i hope those people are ashamed of themselves to this day. ... today when OUR soldiers come home there is noone there to meet them. I think that it might be worse than vietnam, people don't even care that these men and women are dying for US, for YOU. The whole country shruggs a collective "oh well" and we go on to our mocha lattes like the whole thing doesn't matter. It is a WAR! We are fighting it as a nation and OUR soldiers are winning it as best we are allowing them to. Because apparently there was a fear we would with with too much ease, we have decided to demand that in a war zone, on a battlefield, OUR slodiers cannot make any mistakes, no civilian casualty is accepted. We are too worried about our place in the hippie world of the UN apparently. Did you know that during WWII we (along with the Brits) fire bombed Dresden Germany for days killing everyone and burning everything to the ground. Dresden was home to all kinds of dangerous places like an opera house and some art museums. We bombed it simply to show the Germans how far our bombers could go and that we were serious about destroying them ... and i do not think that it was a bad idea in hindsight ... we won the war and none of OUR cities were bombed. Aren't you glad? So in this war we tell OUR soldiers to go and find an enemy hiding in plain sight and kill them but never make a mistake. When two of OUR soldiers killed Iraqi civilians when on petrol they were brought back to this country tried and convicted of murder ... murder! They did not go off on their own to kill ... they went in uniforms provided by OUR army, with guns provided by OUR army entered a home as they were ordered to by OUR army and used their training and judgement to kill what they thought was OUR enemy. Now we tell them that they are criminals. We are fighting this war over there so that civilians here do not die ... because we know that in wars civilians do die.
My point to all this is that i love Sgt K ... i love that he is ready, willing and able to die to protect me. I would much prefer that he kill to protect me which he is also ready, willing , able and well trained to do. And although an unpopular opinion i'm not much interested in the methods employed by OUR army to win this war, i love them and i support them and i do not think that they need to answer to me or my peers for what they do while at war. I want as many as possible to come home safe and victorious, i want them to come home and be recognized as the heros that they are, i want to give them back the place that they should have in our hearts. I want my children to admire men like Sgt K for the sacrifices he has made for our freedom, for the lengths he goes to to protect MY children. When you see a soldier please, please tell that soldier "Thank you." and mean it.
