You would think that writing about soldiers would be easy but trying to find a soldier to write about isn’t. Soldiers typically ‘lay low’. They stay out of the lime light so to speak.
As they grow older as I, you may find them wearing baseball caps with unit designations on them. I know I do but only when I’m at my restaurant and only because I have to while doing food prep. Otherwise the hat sits hanging at work.
The soldiers who I write about this evening are just these kinds of people. They are the ones who understandably just sigh when asked for an interview.
They are real, the ones who live day by day with memories they would rather not have or who today continue to pull themselves out of bed at 3 am. They will shower, throw food quickly down and run out with coffee in hand.
With Veterans Day coming upon us I am reminded of a time when the summer winds greeted us, Memorial Day.
I had been invited to church for Memorial Day and was asked to wear my blues. I was ok with this even though I didn’t know what to expect. Upon arriving there were others like me who served during a time gone by.
A gentleman with cammy pants and a fatigue shirt with colored patches, completely out of uniform except for the patch on the right sleeve...his unit in combat...Vietnam? I had suspected because he appeared a little older than I.
A young marine; he was younger than our own children, pastor’s son perhaps? I began to feel uncomfortable. Why were we there? We sometimes mistake Memorial Day for Veterans Day. I had not felt as though any honor should be brought to me for any reason, no not then and even not now.
I found our young friend, his blue uniform was a little disheveled and I looked for a room and a time to adjust his unit crests. As I adjusted his crests I felt like a father to this brother in arms.
I was honored as I looked down at the 5 rows of ribbons earned only by suffering the trials of abuse of body, mind and spirit in what we know as combat.
Our two families sat together and his poem was read, Soldiers Cry. I remember hearing that he would cry during the loneliness of night, prior to falling asleep in Afghanistan.
He had left a wife at home, pregnant. Being in combat thousands of miles away in sand and stone will do that to you.
I remember a time not too long ago, another young soldier crying. Pressure of everyday military life, of being away from his own family, his girlfriend, the loneliness.
As I listened to the poem I reflected on our common unit the 1st of the 111th Infantry.
I remembered the men and women who I served with as the pastor continued to read his poem regarding two of his buddies he witnessed blown up by an IED worn by a local. He got it...we were here for those men and other men and women like them.
As I continued to reflect on why we were there, I understood the one thing we all had in common as I wiped away my own tears. Soldiers cry.
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