Usually I am most patriotic…actually I am usually patriotic ONLY on July 4th. I do not bleed red, white and blue. Well my blood is red and has white blood cells and my veins appear to be blue, so maybe it is more àpropos to say my body embodies red, white and blue, but that just doesn’t sound right. I don’t follow politics and I couldn’t even begin to recite the Constitution, so today I was surprised.
I was surprised at how deeply I was touched by those in the military. I volunteer for the USO and today I had the duty of handing out carepacks to National Guardsmen leaving for war zones. For that 90 minutes, I felt the war, I saw the faces and I realized that these boys and men (no women in this deployment) might never return to American soil. When you watch TV or read the newspaper, our soldiers are a world away. They are images on a screen and statistics on a graph. They blend in to one continuously shifting blur of camouflage. We aren’t connected. There is no feeling.
For me, today changed that. I won’t remember there names or even their faces in a few weeks, but some things will stay with me. The brand new wedding bands on the fingers of kids barely old enough to graduate high school. THEIR gracious thanks for a bag of everyday items and a phone card. The thought that this bleak and cold New England day would be the last time they see their home for a very long time. The feeling that they were nervous and anxious but at the same time resolute in the fact that they knew there was purpose in what they were doing. We whine and complain about our commute being long or our house being dirty, while these people, these Americans, are miles away from their own beds and families and homes risking their lives every second of every day.
I’m not trying to rally you to volunteer or to feel guilty for the comfortable lives we all have. My words can’t express all that went on today and you will never be able to share my experience. All I want to do is to remind you (whether you agree with international politics or not) that there are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands and wives miles away from home who don’t know who you are and will never know YOUR name, yet they give their heart and souls to protect us. Now, take a moment to look around your house and think about your commute…its not that bad, is it?
I may not agree with the war, but I support the men and women who are giving up their freedom to protect ours.
