Do you remember that our military service men and women are currently fighting two wars? Don't feel bad if you'd forgotten. I occasionally forget too. It's easy to do. I don't know anyone who's been drafted. I haven't been asked to buy war bonds, ration my food, or conserve resources. In fact, I've received a few checks in the mail from the government since we went to war. I even lived in Dover, Delaware, where my husband supervised the finishing touches on the Air Force's brand new mortuary, yet, if I drove by that shiny new building every day, I never saw a clue about how many bodies were going through. So, yes, it's easy to forget.
I am a military wife. So of course I know people who have served in these wars, my husband being one of them. But, so far, I do not personally know anyone who has been killed or seriously injured. That, too, can make it easy to forget.
I have, however, walked the halls of the U.S. military hospital in Landsthul, Germany. It's a sprawling one-level building where babies are born and vision is permanently corrected (which is what took us there). But it's also an eerily quiet place, almost reverent. It's where injured Americans are transported after they have been stabilized in combat zone military field hospitals. It's the stopping point before rehabilitation at places like Walter Reed. Landsthul is where soldiers first realize that life may not ever be the same, where the physical and emotional wounds are still fresh and raw. I may, now and then, momentarily forget that we are at war. But there are two images from that hospital in Germany that resurface in my mind again and again, reminding me that the battlefield is real. The blonde young soldier, not much older than my baby brother, who had so recently lost his left arm. And the middle-aged father, whose eyes betrayed weary and worry, who was missing his legs. Life was not going to be the same for them.
People choose to join the military for any combination of reasons: to fight the bad guys, tradition, camaraderie, high-tech toys, service to country, an escape from one's hometown, tuition for college, an alternative to college, a way to provide food, shelter, and health care for a growing family. I know someone who enlisted in the Air Force so he could buy a motorcycle. The key is that military members choose to be military members. This means no one has to join. We have a volunteer military. This is a good thing. It's one of the things that enables our military to be the best in world. (For all its faults, it's still far and away the best military in the world, and, while I am no hawk, I like living in a country protected by the very best.) The problem with the volunteer military is that it allows for much of the population to feel untouched by war, to forget. Only a few families are asked to sacrifice. Only a handful of people in this country of 300 million feel the pain in a time of war.
Whatever the reasons a person chooses to join the military, the fact is that when it comes down to it, this person is willing to die. Willing to suffer brain damage. To lose limbs. To be haunted by nightmares and anxiety attacks. Willing to miss the birth of a child. To miss anniversaries. And soccer games, and graduations, and Christmas Eve dinners, first steps, first words, bedtimes, bathtimes, birthdays. For me. For you.
I know there's a lot to complain about, people. Especially when it comes to taxes and the way our government spends tax money. I hear the news. I've seen Brian Williams do the "Fleecing of America" bit. So complain about bail outs. Complain about a stimulus package that's too big. Or too small. Complain about millionaire sports fans getting big tax breaks for contributing to their teams. Go ahead and complain about museums and roads and the Medicaid funding that pays for the births of all those starving students' babies in Provo. You can even complain about Four Oaks--I'll send you a check in the mail if it bugs you that bad.
But I do have one request. In case you didn't already know, my brother Dave is a Marine. So I ask the favor of a small attitude adjustment this tax season. Please don't complain about paying my brother's measly enlisted salary. Or the few extra bucks he gets for being in a hazardous situation. Please don't complain about paying for his rifle. Or the rescue helicopter that may save his life.
Come April 15th, or whenever you pay your federal income taxes, tone down the moaning this time around. You have reason to pay your taxes with pride: My brother is in Afghanistan.
