Appreciate Your Blessings

During a deployment, every army wife fears the day when a black car pulls up to the house delivering two uniformed soldiers to your doorstep to inform you that our deepest darkest fear has come true - that your husband has been injured or worse killed in action.

For those who are not military spouses it is sometimes easy to pretend that we are not still fighting a war and that we are not losing good men every day.  The news on TV can seem a distant crisis unconnected to their lives and the soldiers who make the ultimate sacrifice are just names and faces on the 5:00 news.  I admit, when I was in high school, I was one of these blissfully ignorant people.  I understood that there was a war going on but I didn't feel connected or affected by it much save for the events of 9/11.  When I went to college, my eyes were opened when I met and made friends with people who were in the ROTC programs and I began to volunteer with a military outreach group.  Now, married to a soldier, those who act like my former self frustrate me and I have to remind myself that perhaps they don't realize how blissfully ignorant they really are.

The reality is that the faces of the soldiers on the 5:00 news are not just names and faces.  They are the faces of husbands, fathers, mothers, wives, daughters, and sons.  Loved ones of someone who will miss them forever.

Two weeks ago, a friend of mine had her worst nightmare come true.  Her husband was killed in Afghanistan leaving her with a future of shattered dreams and a 20 month old son to raise on her own.  My heart is broken for her and I have been praying daily and nightly for her entire family.  Although I only met this soldier once, because he was deployed for the majority of the time that my friend and I were living in the same state, I have been deeply affected by his passing.  I could easily have been the one standing in this friends' shoes.

For the past two weeks, this army wife and her husband have never been far from my thoughts.  I feel frustrated that there really isn't much I can do to "make things better."  I have always hated to see friends in pain and have always tried to do whatever I can to help them to "fix" whatever is wrong but there's no fixing this.  Nothing that I or anyone else can say or do will ever be enough to fill the void in this young woman's life.  I feel helpless and I hate it.

Over the past two weeks I have felt the need to tell everyone and anyone who will listen to me about this soldier and his ultimate sacrifice.  I have always felt that taking about someone who has passed is one of the best ways to remember them and to keep them from being forgotten. I know he isn't the only soldier who has been lost and I get an uneasy feeling every time a soldier's face is shown on the news but this one hit closer to home than most.  Most of those who I have shared the story with are sympathetic but there have been a few whose responses have been akin to "well they knew what the risks were..." This response for lack of a better word pisses me off.  I mean of course we know what the risks are but if no one was willing to take them where would our country be?  Just because we know the risks doesn't mean we are prepared to accept them.  Does knowing "the risk" mean that somehow it's OK that this young woman is now raising a child alone who will probably only remember bits and pieces of his father?  I don't think so.

If you are reading this, I ask you to do two things.  1) Please say a prayer for my friend and her family and the families of all fallen soldiers tonight - don't forget them or let their sacrifices be in vain and 2) thank God for your own loved ones and don't take them for granted.

We are all guilty at some point of being annoyed with our spouses myself included.  We get mad because of something trivial and we complain to our girlfriends about stuff that our husbands did or didn't do but I challenge you to consider this - how would you feel if you suddenly didn't have him anymore?  Would that thing you were mad about matter anymore?  I'm not saying we can't ever be mad.  Having arguments sometimes is normal.  Just remember that in the end, we are lucky to have our loved ones safe and out of harms way.  Never take for granted what you have because there are those who would give anything for one more day with those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

May my friend's husband rest in peace and may his family find peace and love in the memories they shared.