Soldiers Little Box
In a tin box in a wooden drawer in my bedroom is a little cheap cardboard box. On the lid of the box written in ink is the address where I was born in a home long since torn down to make way for modernization. Inside the box are colored ribbons attached to stamped pieces of metal called medals that my father was awarded by a grateful government for his service in WWII.
From what I remember as a child my father may have been entitled to more medals but never sent off for them. The ones in the box were the standard ones awarded for fighting in WWII. My dad did not value his medals highly or at least it seemed that way to me as a child most likely because of all the pain and suffering and horrible deaths he saw both civilian and military during the second world war. I can only imagine what it was like at El Alamein, landing on Sword and Omaha beaches or crossing the Rhine in the face of gunfire and exploding shells. Never mind the walk and battles fought to get to the Rhine.
I once as children are want to do innocently asked him why he went to war. It was not simply because he was drafted. It was he said because wars are won by people who cannot wait to get back to their loved ones. Never volunteer but always go when asked and do your duty with pride in your regiment and care for your fellow soldiers he said. Is that the main reason? No the main reason was so that the enemy could not walk down your grandmother's street and kick her door in as they had the rest of Europe. No one should have to live in constant fear of brutal intimidation by thugs.
So here I sit many years later with a soldiers little cardboard box holding it with pride because of all the terror, suffering and death my father witnessed and fought through to leave me two things, freedom and the cheap little cardboard box that tells me how precious freedom is and how much it cost and why even today only our armed forces can keep it for us.
On my way past my office last Saturday I stopped to lower the American flag to half mast not only because I had just arrived from Texas but because I know what freedom costs and was sad not to see it already lowered. My trip to Texas was to honor for the last time a friend who fought in Vietnam believing he was defending America's freedom so for me it was indeed a really sad trip to Texas.
Do you simply drive by the lowered flags and think only of Fort Hood or do you think also of the cost of freedom? Do you think with pride that the young men and women who buried their friends and experienced the tragedy of their horrific deaths at Fort Hood first hand will shortly ship out to make sure that no one in America has to live in constant fear of brutal intimidation by thugs.
Medals don't mean much to politicians my dad said. He taught me that politicians start wars soldiers fight and die in them and then politicians give away to serve their own ends what the soldiers won through supreme courage, sacrifice and heroism. I feel that President Bush understood this and did not go to war lightly. I think he went to war so that no one in America has to live in constant fear of brutal intimidation by thugs. I firmly believe that the soldiers at Fort Hood and all the American armed forces believe this also and pray that they all get to hand down their medals from a grateful government to their children personally.
From what I remember as a child my father may have been entitled to more medals but never sent off for them. The ones in the box were the standard ones awarded for fighting in WWII. My dad did not value his medals highly or at least it seemed that way to me as a child most likely because of all the pain and suffering and horrible deaths he saw both civilian and military during the second world war. I can only imagine what it was like at El Alamein, landing on Sword and Omaha beaches or crossing the Rhine in the face of gunfire and exploding shells. Never mind the walk and battles fought to get to the Rhine.
I once as children are want to do innocently asked him why he went to war. It was not simply because he was drafted. It was he said because wars are won by people who cannot wait to get back to their loved ones. Never volunteer but always go when asked and do your duty with pride in your regiment and care for your fellow soldiers he said. Is that the main reason? No the main reason was so that the enemy could not walk down your grandmother's street and kick her door in as they had the rest of Europe. No one should have to live in constant fear of brutal intimidation by thugs.
So here I sit many years later with a soldiers little cardboard box holding it with pride because of all the terror, suffering and death my father witnessed and fought through to leave me two things, freedom and the cheap little cardboard box that tells me how precious freedom is and how much it cost and why even today only our armed forces can keep it for us.
On my way past my office last Saturday I stopped to lower the American flag to half mast not only because I had just arrived from Texas but because I know what freedom costs and was sad not to see it already lowered. My trip to Texas was to honor for the last time a friend who fought in Vietnam believing he was defending America's freedom so for me it was indeed a really sad trip to Texas.
Do you simply drive by the lowered flags and think only of Fort Hood or do you think also of the cost of freedom? Do you think with pride that the young men and women who buried their friends and experienced the tragedy of their horrific deaths at Fort Hood first hand will shortly ship out to make sure that no one in America has to live in constant fear of brutal intimidation by thugs.
Medals don't mean much to politicians my dad said. He taught me that politicians start wars soldiers fight and die in them and then politicians give away to serve their own ends what the soldiers won through supreme courage, sacrifice and heroism. I feel that President Bush understood this and did not go to war lightly. I think he went to war so that no one in America has to live in constant fear of brutal intimidation by thugs. I firmly believe that the soldiers at Fort Hood and all the American armed forces believe this also and pray that they all get to hand down their medals from a grateful government to their children personally.
posted by Wisdom at 6:28 PM
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