Memorial Day, How I Will Remember
There are a lot of my friends who are posting photos and reminders on FB and other social media sites about the reason for the season. Many have and will post notes urging friends to remember the purpose behind Memorial Day weekend, which is absolutely NOT grilling some steaks and drinking some beers.
Having said that, I will be grilling some steaks, and while I don't drink anymore, definitely drinking a few sodas or some cold "welcome to summer lemonade :)." I will do it because to me, the greatest way I can think of to honor my brothers and sisters in uniform who have made the ultimate sacrifice, is to "LIVE" my life. That is what I would want of my friends and family if I passed away; that they live the lives I cannot.
I think back to my deployment to Afghanistan some years ago and I think of good friends like Rick and Tony, Vanessa and Laly, John, Rob, Eric, and my right hand man and partner in crime, Chris. That was a tough deployment, a tough 15 months, yet many of the bad experiences have long-since disappeared from my memory banks. I have, like most other veterans who have served in war, chosen to remember the good things, the special things only men and women half a world away, in immediate danger, can experience. Those bonds run deeper than most and are at least in my case, timeless.
I think back to a few days after we arrived in-country, literally 2 or 3, when a suicide bomber blew himself up along with a number of our troops at a gate close to us. I was in a leadership position and I had promised my soldiers' families I would bring them home safe and sound, and my immediate thought was "what if it was one of my guys? How will I face their families and tell them their husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister has died, after making such a foolish promise?" I also remember the relief I felt when I found out none of my buddies had been hurt, and yet guilty because I felt relief at a moment when other soldiers who knew the deceased were in pain.
War is an awful place for emotion. You run the gambit every day. One moment you are nostalgic remembering those you love who are far away, the next you are desperately lonely. One moment you are happy and joking with a friend, a moment later, that friend is torn to pieces in the seat next to you after a roadside bomb explodes and you are left with the most horrible pain you have ever experienced. Someone far smarter and infinitely more quotable than I said "War Is Hell." It is. It sucks! Yet in war, you truly learn to appreciate life in a whole new way. When the moments of your day are not guaranteed they take on greater significance, and when those you love die, you feel a huge responsibility to live on for them because you know they would live on for you.
So this weekend I will remember my friends, every single member of my unit because they all meant so much to me. I will remember every flag-draped casket I saluted as it was driven down the street onto a waiting plane to take a brother or sister back home. Then, I will LIVE. I will squeeze the life out of every single second I am given, for them. Our war dead deserve one thing from us, that we celebrate and fully embrace the freedom their sacrifice bought us by living our lives to the fullest.
If you want to honor the reason for this long-weekend, LIVE it.
Hug those you love a little tighter, call old friends and family, enjoy the flavors of everything you eat and relish in the warmth of the sun as it paints your skin. Live, that is what our men and women who died serving their country would want us to do. Live.
Having said that, I will be grilling some steaks, and while I don't drink anymore, definitely drinking a few sodas or some cold "welcome to summer lemonade :)." I will do it because to me, the greatest way I can think of to honor my brothers and sisters in uniform who have made the ultimate sacrifice, is to "LIVE" my life. That is what I would want of my friends and family if I passed away; that they live the lives I cannot.
I think back to my deployment to Afghanistan some years ago and I think of good friends like Rick and Tony, Vanessa and Laly, John, Rob, Eric, and my right hand man and partner in crime, Chris. That was a tough deployment, a tough 15 months, yet many of the bad experiences have long-since disappeared from my memory banks. I have, like most other veterans who have served in war, chosen to remember the good things, the special things only men and women half a world away, in immediate danger, can experience. Those bonds run deeper than most and are at least in my case, timeless.
I think back to a few days after we arrived in-country, literally 2 or 3, when a suicide bomber blew himself up along with a number of our troops at a gate close to us. I was in a leadership position and I had promised my soldiers' families I would bring them home safe and sound, and my immediate thought was "what if it was one of my guys? How will I face their families and tell them their husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister has died, after making such a foolish promise?" I also remember the relief I felt when I found out none of my buddies had been hurt, and yet guilty because I felt relief at a moment when other soldiers who knew the deceased were in pain.
War is an awful place for emotion. You run the gambit every day. One moment you are nostalgic remembering those you love who are far away, the next you are desperately lonely. One moment you are happy and joking with a friend, a moment later, that friend is torn to pieces in the seat next to you after a roadside bomb explodes and you are left with the most horrible pain you have ever experienced. Someone far smarter and infinitely more quotable than I said "War Is Hell." It is. It sucks! Yet in war, you truly learn to appreciate life in a whole new way. When the moments of your day are not guaranteed they take on greater significance, and when those you love die, you feel a huge responsibility to live on for them because you know they would live on for you.
So this weekend I will remember my friends, every single member of my unit because they all meant so much to me. I will remember every flag-draped casket I saluted as it was driven down the street onto a waiting plane to take a brother or sister back home. Then, I will LIVE. I will squeeze the life out of every single second I am given, for them. Our war dead deserve one thing from us, that we celebrate and fully embrace the freedom their sacrifice bought us by living our lives to the fullest.
If you want to honor the reason for this long-weekend, LIVE it.
Hug those you love a little tighter, call old friends and family, enjoy the flavors of everything you eat and relish in the warmth of the sun as it paints your skin. Live, that is what our men and women who died serving their country would want us to do. Live.
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