"Fly me up to where you are beyond the distant star.
I wish upon the night to see you smile.
If only for a while, to know you're there,
A breath away's not far to where you are..."
I often
have this odd sensation of looking down on my life from up above, as though
from a distant galaxy. The edges of what I can see down below are a little hazy
and out of focus, and I can't quite discern what lies beyond the fours corners
of my existence. Perhaps it's just easier to disassociate from the truth by
taking myself out of the picture entirely. This out-of-body sensation usually
envelops me just as I'm about to drift off to sleep, and I always wonder if the
picture will look different by the time I wake up. But when I return to
reality, I'm back in the picture and Jon is still gone. The picture is the
same, and there's still an empty spot in the bed where his 5'10" frame
used to rest next to me so peacefully.
Due to
the nature of what I do here in Afghanistan, I can't openly discuss the details of my job or what I've learned thus far. What I will say
without restraint, however, is that I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with mass media
and its impact on wartime operations. When Jon was deployed to Iraq, my
heart sank every time I turned on the news and saw the news ticker scrolling
across the bottom of the screen with the names and numbers of the Soldiers we'd
lost in combat that day. Now I find myself scouring the headlines for any
mention of Afghanistan and, similarly, my heart sinks when there's nothing to
be found. I see more coverage of insignificant things happening in other
countries than I do about our own Soldiers fighting and dying for the sake of
everyone back at home. It's as if this kind of news is no longer sensational enough to splash across the front page and has now been downgraded to a mere afterthought. Why is that? Is it just that after twelve
years, the majority of the American population has become numb to the loss of
our men and women at the hands of terrorists? And when did we reach the point
at which we could be so cold and indifferent towards death? Is it because
so few Americans are personally impacted by these losses given that so few
people volunteer to serve in the first place? Hey, if the news isn't
covering it anymore, the situation can't really be that bad, right? Ha.
I don't mean to sound bitter, but if people only knew . . .
Although
the national anti-war sentiment was far more rampant and unforgiving during the
Vietnam War era, I'm beginning to wonder if this is how those veterans felt
when they returned home and were told by cowardly draft dodgers that what
they fought for was "wrong" or pointless. I find myself
studying past military operations in which American lives were lost (like
Operation Gothic Serpent, Somalia) and wondering if we've learned anything at
all from our mistakes. I guess only time will tell. But
until then, I won’t hold my breath. I’ve said it before and I’ll say
it again: Never before have the debts of so many been paid by so
few. And if you ask me, there’s something very wrong with that
picture. As some of us know all too well, freedom is not free.
People
ask me all the time why I'm still in the Army after everything that's happened.
My question to them is "why not?" Someone has
to do it right? My husband taught me a lot about leadership, and one
thing it does not include is looking around for someone who'll take the hit when shit hits the fan. It really is as simple as
stepping forward and saying "here I am, Lord. Send me."
(Isaiah 6:8) When my ROTC instructor, Matthew Eversmann (75th
Ranger Regiment Veteran and co-author of the book "Black Hawk Down,” which
tells the story of Operation Gothic Serpent), first recited this quote to my
young, impressionable commissioning class, I thought his words were just that:
words. But now I know better. They're not just words -
they're proof of a purpose in a world where terrible things happen and so
little makes any sense. And so I say, here I am, Lord. Send
me. Jon would expect no less.
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