20 years as an Army wife and all I got was this lousy t-shirt
Euphoric Reality posted a reminder today of what it really means to support the troops. The sentiments expressed are valid, support goes way beyond a magnetic ribbon, but even if most Americans barely think of the sacrifices made by men and women in uniform and their families and communities, I can't say I feel shortchanged.
Being a part of the military community, if you embrace it, is life altering. I didn't realize that when I grew up a retiree's kid in a town full of Rambo wannabes. In those days, I only saw the down side. Too many 18 year olds with paychecks wasted on camaros and beer. I'd never marry a soldier.
When I moved home after a few years in college and 18 months abroad, I met and immediately fell in love with the most thoughtful, gentle and loving man, a new congregant at my home church. Imagine my shock when I saw him in olive drab for the first time. He'd already served for 8 years and was a young captain. He was educated, well-spoken and committed to serving. The boots and BDUs represented more to him than I could have even conceived of back then. I'll never forget the first time I called his house. His answering machine announced that he couldn't pick up because he was fighting godless hordes and making the world safe to democracy. A Sousa march played in the background. I'd entered the Twilight Zone.
As we dated, I became acquainted with another side of Army life. The kind you can only see from the inside. The loyalty, the friendship, the dedication, the sacrifice, the honor, the respect. In the years since then, and in spite of my routine complaining about long hours and deployments, I fell in love many times over, with him and with his patriotic cause.
He and his buddies laugh that no one is a more ardent supporter of the military than a soldier's wife. We keeper's of the home fires do get overzealous, I'll admit, but when the cause is just and you have so much riding on success, simpering in fear is a luxury you can ill afford.
So sit in Starbucks, read your paper, sip your coffee and feign support. It won't bother me. The dim light cast by your unappreciative American affluence will never cast the same brilliance and warmth as the mere memories of my association with dedicated men and women in uniform. When the determination to see all men free burns like a flame in your breast, you hardly notice the self-absorbed shadow dwellers even if they do benefit from the fire you helped to build.
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so well said Cate. I have so many reasons for wanting to have that part of my life back. It' would unfair of me to ask my wife and kids to serve again also.
I appreciate all that you did to support your husband while he served.
While it's nice to be appreciated and every veteran I run across I try to thank, the honor and gratitude is mine. I served in the finest Navy for the finest country in the world. NO ONE can take that away from me, grateful or not.
Comment by elmers brother— 2007/04/15 @ 06:31 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Cate— 2007/04/17 @ 12:13 PM — (Reply)
Cate,
Sorry I haven't had time to write a longer response to your response to my comment on your post about evangelicals. I did still want to comment here and say that, though my family's service to the military was much shorter than yours (tho my older bro is now a doc at the VA if that counts), I do have a small understanding of the military culture you describe as you can see in the 1 minute 49 second YouTube video I made with my dad last Veterans' Day at:
Can You Support Peace AND Support Our Troops?
Allen
Comment by Alen— 2007/04/17 @ 11:14 AM — (Reply)
I watched your video and felt that you were asking the wrong question entirely.
Seeking peace and supporting the troops aren't mutually exclusive goals. In fact, I believe that a superior military leads to peace in the same way that an authoritative school principal reigns in undisciplined students. Fear of repercussion is the ultimate external deterrent.
We pray for peace. We negotiate for peace. We willingly lay down our weapons and shake hands with our enemy when he wants peace. But what we cannot do is refuse to fight when an enemy threatens peace and freedom at home or abroad. Such cowardice not only undermines our troops it undermines the authority of peaceful people everywhere.
When you consider yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech in light of the daily suicide bombings in the middle east and the repression and violence that hangs over most of the world's inhabitants, the American left's policy of isolationism and claims of compassion ring hollow. Here we are in a nation where a gunman taking out 33 innocents is described as the worst shooting in our history and yet you want to walk away from the mission of pushing democracy in the middle east where war (even before we invaded Iraq) is daily life.
Seems to me your questions really is: Can you support the troops and want to leave Iraq?
And so I ask, how can any truly compassionate person look into the eyes of a Palestinian or an Iraqi and simply say "You're on your own." Look into the eyes of a human Iraqi child who lives in fear of imported insurgents waiting to fill the power vacuum left by the dethroned tyrant Saddam.
Face the hate forced upon Palestinian children who costumed in the clothing of terrorists and assassins and taught that their Jewish neighbors are literally descended of pigs.
When you can call leaving Iraq a compassionate act that supports human rights, when you can show me how free men everywhere are safer by containing the poison of barbarism that has reigned in the desert, then I'll hear your arguments about walking away from Baghdad. In fact, if you can show me how to contain the poison and protect the peaceful innocents in the Middle East in this age where the internet allows a man in Mogadishu to instruct a boy in Canada on building an IED, I'll recommend you for a Nobel Peace Prize but until you have a policy that addresses all of those issues, all you are is a useless voice of dissent. We need solutions, effective ones, and people willing to carry them out whatever the cost. When you have a solution rather than a complaint, I promise, I'm all ears.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill
Comment by Cate— 2007/04/17 @ 12:53 PM — (Reply)
Cate,
You watched my video but, instead of addressing the questions I actually raised, you claimed your questions really is:
You go on to associate me with the supposed "left's policy of isolationism" and with supposed "cowardice" and conclude, finally with:
Well, actually, when I heard Bush's January 10 speech detailing his latest plan for Iraq, I thought his idea was so bad that I came up with my own amateur plan you can see me describe at:
Should the US Just THREATEN to Get Out of Iraq?
And, if you watch that video, you'll see that if you're going to blame anyone's "isolationism" for the current ethnic conflicts in the region, it would have to be the isolationism of the American right after WWI that kept us out of the League of Nations and let deals like Sykes-Picot trump the Wilsonian principles inherent in LIBERAL democracies.
I'm sorry if my previous video did not fit the reply you had planned, but that is no reason to accuse me of "cowardice," "isolationism," or spend your entire reply responding to arguments I did not make
Allen
Comment by Allen— 2007/04/21 @ 06:01 PM — (Reply)
Answer: Yes.
Now, since we are pretending that you have no motive other than asking a question with an obvious answer, let me explain to you why your question is loaded rather than sincere.
We are at war. Whether or not you agree with the war, our troops are in combat. To ask if peace is consistent with troop support while we are in the midst of an armed conflict implies opposition between the current struggle and the long term goal of peace.
If by peace, you mean an absence of conflict, then we can have peace through appeasement - at least for a time (see Europe 1918-1939). If by peace you mean the relative calm of life under a constitutional democracy, then the war in Iraq is merely another step closer to freeing earth's inhabitants from the bondage of dictatorship.
So if you'll forgive me for addressing the question I perceived rather than the question you asked, I'll forgive you for maintaining the pretense of being agendaless.
Comment by Cate— 2007/04/22 @ 10:26 AM — (Reply)
Wonderful blog and wonderful entries. I look forward to reading here on a regular basis. We're a military (15yrs) and homeschooling (4yrs) family and your words ring true to me.
Also, if you don't mind. I would like to link to you from my blog.
Comment by Sheri— 2007/04/17 @ 06:40 PM — (Reply)
Wonderful blog and wonderful entries. I look forward to reading here on a regular basis. We're a military (15yrs) and homeschooling (4yrs) family and your words ring true to me.
Also, if you don't mind. I would like to link to you from my blog.
Comment by Sheri— 2007/04/17 @ 06:42 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Cate— 2007/04/17 @ 08:08 PM — (Reply)
Well. You brought out many a memory for this old out-to-pasture warhorse, Miss Cate. Thank you.
I was lucky enough to have my wife with me during our three multi-year overseas tours with the Air Force. The military family really comes together in a foreign country; it is where a full appreciation of exactly what we have here comes into full bloom. Think of being surrounded by others' spouses and dependents who, even in their diversity, relate to you better than any Starbuck's drinking civilian ever will.
But I preach to the choir, don't I?
The appreciation for the US that comes with foreign duty is one reason I have always supported a mandatory two-year service for all men. I'm undecided on young ladies, for a number of reasons but mostly because military duty necessarily involves killing things, sometimes "collateral" things. This is a burden I feel women should not bear; they are, after all, the givers of life. We men are the ones who dole out death, it seems.
I attended my first Marine Corp Ball a couple years ago -- the Marines were mostly in Iraq at the time and attendance was forecast to be low -- we were invited to essentially "fill in the ranks" for the fighting troops. It was a very sobering, pomp and circumstance and tradition-filled, wonderful night. I got a small hint of what it must be like to be part of a two-hundred year old organization. I appreciated your description of the posting of the colors; but then I still get chills and a tear or two when the flag passes by.
Thanks again, soccermom.
Comment by Rollo— 2007/04/20 @ 01:15 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Cate— 2007/04/20 @ 02:59 PM — (Reply)
Cate is a wise and wonderful woman, with many good ideas, and always best intentions for our country. I've disagreed with her point of view in several places, but I've never doubted her motivation. Methodology is another matter.
That said, I just wanted to see if I surprise Cate at all by saying that I have also always supported a mandatory two-year service. I'd include a service exemption, e.g. Peace Corps, for those who wish it, but two years service to the country, preferably overseas to see a bit of the rest of the world is, as Cate says, more than a reasonable price for citizenship.
Comment by Michael— 2007/04/23 @ 06:36 AM — (Reply)
Doesn't surprise me at all that youwould support madatory service, Michael, even though we disagree about many issues - I believe our ultimate goals are quite similar.
Re: the peace corp alternative, I'd love to see humanitarian service opportunities offered especially for women as an alternative to combat positions.
Comment by Cate— 2007/04/23 @ 08:35 AM — (Reply)