Day Nine: Defending Liberty

"Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing." ~Ronald Reagan

When my husband first joined the military, I didn't understand the significance and far-reaching importance of the career path he had chosen. To be honest, I saw it as a lot like camp for grown-ups. The first three years, he went to work and mostly they sat around playing cards or went out to wash jets. The stories he told me just punctuated my notion of Big Boy & Girl Camp, as I imagined them doing camp-like things and getting paid for it. That all changed when he was on a Temporary Duty Assignment to Guam and the first Gulf War broke out. The television exploded with non-stop coverage of the military actions being taken, while I was informed that the possibility that he was going to be diverted to the Persian Gulf was "highly likely". My girlfriends and I watched the news night and day and burned up the phone lines talking about "what ifs". On the first phone call after the war began, my husband told me he'd volunteered to go. We had a horrible fight, me trying to talk him out of it and him trying to explain to me why he had to do it. I didn't understand and I didn't like it at all. I was afraid, for those I knew who were going to be stepping into harm's way and those I knew who'd eventually land there if the war continued. Added to my growing angst and agitation were the protestors who marched a line in front of our base gates every single day. I couldn't sleep. I barely ate. And finally, I cracked, phoning my pastor Dr. Charles Edwards who was back in my hometown in North Carolina. I spilled out my anger at the protestors and my fears about my husband and friends who were now smack dab in the middle of some nightmare I could barely wrap my mind around.

"I don't understand what is happening," I told Dr. Edwards frantically on the phone. "And I'm angry all the time, at the world for putting people I love in harms way and at the protestors who complain and look down upon them as if they were doing something wrong. I don't know what to do," I confessed to this man whom I'd known most of my life. He listened quietly, patiently, and then he said, "What your husband and friends are doing is defending others rights to protest without fear, voice their own fears and protect a land that is free." His words sank into my 21-year-old brain and there was no going back. My childish, rose-colored glasses had been shattered and the real world came crashing down around me. I would never be able to go back to being that girl who looked at such a grave responsibility as if it were Disneyland in camouflage. I am grateful for all who run towards danger in order to avert it, so that the rest of us might live in peace. I am happy to call many of the people who do those scary things my family. And I am honored to live in a Nation where not only does Liberty matter, but also is an ideal that a lot of people would give their lives to defend. Happy Veteran's Day...to all who've laced 'em up, in every branch, and all who love and support them, keeping the home fire burning while they do their duty.

---

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington D.C. 2010