It goes without saying, the bravest families in America are our military families. Moms & Dads. Sisters & Brothers. Wives & Husbands. Sons & Daughters. All sacrificing for the protection of this country. The less than 1% who stick up for the other 99%. Incredible.
I had recently gone through my blog list, roaming and deleting posts I never finished or ones that were empty. Started with every intention of finishing, but never did. This was one of them.
On January 27th, Oprah aired a show entitled "Bravest Families in America" and as I type this, I'm watching it for the third time thanks to my DVR. It's hard to. She opens asking how many of us can say we know a soldier fighting in a war. I know lots. She also said at the time of airing 5,892 US service members had been killed. Now, the tally is 6,031. 139 more in 3.5 months. Nothing frustrates me more than realizing how many people are "bandwagon" military supporters. You know, Osama has been captured...so let me display my American flag once again. Let me take 10 seconds out of my day to thank the troops on my Facebook status or Twitter feed. How noble of you. I wrote a blog on that issue before, so I digress.
If there is one thing I'm passionate about (well, one of many) it's the military. I was raised that way and having been married to a soldier, it made it all the more realistic to me. Tom Brokaw opens the show explaining that these men and women return very different people. They experience anxiety, depression, and their spouses and children bear a heavy, heavy burden. If you're a part of a military family, you know this already. Still, I feel like as much as I say it, as much as others say it, people still just don't get it. I can explain to my family until I am blue in the face that my situation with M wasn't his fault. They don't get it. My dad seemed to when I talked to him about it recently, but my mom...even tonight is just hell bent he was an abusive jerk.
I watch this show, with happy pictures of a happy Briest family. You can see here and here a little bit about their story and a clip from the Oprah Show. You can also read about Michael's mom. Just the name alone makes me sad. This poor mother who drives 6 hours to visit her son...in a cemetery. Arlington Cemetery. AWFUL. Death is hard enough as it is, but sending someone you love overseas, not knowing if they will return or not is unimaginable. Having them die in service to our country unexpectedly is horrendous. Yet so many families experience it. Thousands. THOUSANDS!
First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden launched an initiative called Joining Forces, which you can read about here. It's a call to arms of sorts. A call to lend a helping hand and do whatever is necessary to help these amazing families.
This war is real. It is not going away. Years from now, when it does finally come to an end...the wounds will still be there. The need will still be there. Just because it ends, doesn't mean it really ends. If you're reading my blog and haven't yet done your part to help military families, do it. Now. No excuses. There are SO MANY ways to help.
I leave you with some images of Section 60 in Arlington National Cemetery. The home of brave men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This was beautifully written. Thanks for sharing. I never knew how much military spouses/families needed support until I became a milspouse myself. It really is an honor to be married to a serviceman, but it's more of an honor to serve other servicemen and their families, too.
ReplyDeleteMy family has always been supportive, but they never understood the changes or the difficulties until my sister and I were in the service. It seems like one of those difficult things that people can never actually wrap their heads around until it happens to them. Sorta like how no one truly understands losing a child until it happens in their family.
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