War, and all of its sacrifices, hit home
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 3 months ago
This is a very moving tribute to our fighting men. I am copying some of it below as a teaser for you to go to the link I am providing here to read the whole commentary.
War, and all of its sacrifices, hit home.
Shame on me, I thought. My job puts me in a position where I have reams of information at my disposable on what’s happening in Iraq. We’re rapidly closing in on an unfortunate casualty figure since 9/11, when we’ll have lost more American lives fighting since the attack than we did on the day itself. Talk about terrible arithmetic.
My father-in-law is a Vietnam veteran very active in veteran’s affairs. And yet only now had it really hit home. Only now, as I watched shoppers stroll comfortably in the air-conditioning, did it hit me in the gut.
[ … ]
And then I wondered about all the men and women who have come home with limbs missing, with the psychological scars war inevitably brings. We see them now, sweating in a Walter Reed rehab room. Running on their space-age titanium prosthetics, and biking across the country to raise money — reminding us at every turn of the spirit that drives this country.
But where will they be in 35 years, when youth has abandoned them and war is a distant memory for much of the country?
[ … ]
Later that night, after I’d read her stories and “lights out,” we whispered conspiratorially to each other in the dark of her room. I have few memories prior to age four, and I often remind her, in those magic moments between parent and child, to remember special days and events.
“Alexa, remember the man we met today who gave you the American flag? The soldier?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said.
“Remember.”
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