We American sports fans can sit back comfortably, watching our favorite teams compete thanks to the men and women of our military services. It is their sacrifice which allows us a civilian life of comfort and protection. Imagine, just for today, what our daily routines would require of us had we not the security and protection of our armed services.
What If you were required to stand guard over your city or state borders. To walk perimeter patrols at dusk or daybreak, praying a targeted sniper bullet might spare you enough functionality to return to your family with some semblance of the person you left as.
You would be recruited, trained and assigned a guard-post to engage any enemy threat, foreign or domestic, to your community. You carry the responsibility of knowing the safety of friends, family and fellow citizens rests on your ability to fulfill your duty successfully. One mistake can cost you your life or the lives of others.
When not on patrol you do your best to adjust to normal civilian living, marrying and having kids, always aware of the destructive threat awaiting your family should fellow soldiers falter in your absence. It's a threat that keeps you sleepless at night and paranoid throughout daytime R&R. You almost want to cut short the supposed Rest & Relaxation time with your family and return to the front lines early, just to ensure yourself all is safe and sound for that day.
If not for the responsibility and affections of your loved ones, death would probably be a welcome respite from the stress of having to kill and/or be killed. It's not about courage, honor or loyalty; it's about survival. There are evil forces outside your perimeter that want the territory and resources where you live, regardless of how small. You are a part of the home forces that stand between them and annihilation of community life as you know it.
And so, you proudly serve your community with a pledge to sacrifice your life, if necessary, in defense of it.
And someday, when you have fulfilled your military obligations and received an honorable discharge from active service, you will find yourself holding your sobbing wife, as your 18-year-old son walks out the front door of your home to begin his military training. Part of you is proud to watch your boy courageously walking toward a life that's sure to strengthen his manhood. But another part is full of fear, doubt and anger, knowing the dangers he'll face and the loss of innocence that comes with such a duty. All sorts of thoughts bombard your mind. "Did I prepare him well? Does he know how much I love him? It seems only yesterday. My boy!"
As you console your sobbing wife, tears well-up in your own eyes; tears not only of concern for the safety of your child, but also from feeling your being forced too soon to let go of your child. But let go you must, so that he can grow, live and prayerfully survive the horrors and joys life has in store for him.
Flashback thirty years and you see your younger self in the departing shoulders and courageous being of your son, leaving behind the sobbing sounds of mom and dad as you walk away from home to commence military training. You remember that day like no other and it is then that you join your wife in uncontrollable sobbing.
For the hardest of men sometimes become like crying babies when faced with the realization of just how much he loves his child and family. As with discovering the grace of God, it can take a lifetime or only seconds; it is God who decides the time.
For those who serve and their loved ones. You are not alone.
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