I’ve never served in the military, but I’m the daughter of a man who did. A man who sacrificed three and a half years of his prime to defend our country and Europe from Nazi aggression. Halfway around the world, his younger brother combatted Japanese aggression in the Pacific and Asia.
My mother said he left one man and returned another, completely and forever changed. “He was never the same,” she said. While she remembers him the “way he was,” I only knew him the way he returned.
And he wasn’t alone. None of the returning warriors were the same. How could they be?
But he was luckier than many, because he did come home. To my mother’s arms and a good life and the ability to dream dreams and pursue them.
Millions have not been so fortunate. Those who fell on battlefields around the world, including United States soil, at a time when we weren’t so united.
Today, in the United States, we remember these fallen, and we say a grateful prayer of thanks. That they were able and willing to fight to defend our way of life, our freedoms.
But I can’t talk about Memorial Day like a former warrior can. A warrior who knows intimately what terror, hate, and evil our service men and women face in battle on land, on sea, and in the air.
In his emotional opinion piece, Ex-SEAL, Jocko Willink, reminds us to remember the warriors who made the supreme sacrifice. And through your remembering, not wasting the time you have on Earth.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/05/25/ex-seal-jocko-willink-remember-warriors-who-made-supreme-sacrifice-dont-waste-your-time-on-earth.html
In gratefulness to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the land I so dearly love,
Andrea
Photo credit: Flickr pool photo by Jeff Reardon