I am sheltered.
I have been very removed from the consequences of war.
My grandpa Salholm served in the United States army, and my Grandpa Engler spent many years in the Navy. My dad served this country by fighting wildfires in California during Vietnam. But me, personally? I've never really felt the cost of freedom. I know people currently serving, but they aren't people close to me.
I vaguely remember my Grandpa Engler telling stories about the Navy, but not really enough to remember any details. And they were all humerous stories. He died when I was 9. My Grandpa Salholm never really talked about the Army at all, except that dropping the atomic bomb probably saved his life, because he wasn't sent to fight in the Pacific. I didn't even know that until he died last year.
A man from Hillsdale (pop. 8,000ish) was beheaded by terrorists in Iraq earlier this week. A guy from my old church was killed in a humvee accident last week. Not people that I knew, yet I have this desire to be affected. I don't want to lose someone I love, but I want to be able to relate somehow to those who have.
I live in this my own little world, and some things will never make sense to me. Like, never having seen the Twin Towers, I find it hard to miss them. Living in Oregon, I was very detached from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Iraq is a long way away, and I have no way to compare my cushy life at school to being shot at under the scorching sun. It's not that I don't care, because I do. But part of me can never seem to understand; never can care enough.
I want so much to be able to relate, but I can't. All I can do is offer a very solemn 'thank you' to all the men and women serving all over this world.
I feel so silly and inadequate. What can one post on the blog of one little girl do? Not much, I'm afraid. But, I know that I pray to the soverign, omnipotent, and loving God of the Universe, and that somehow, in His infinite wisdom, He'll take care of you.
Help me to remember those words inscribed in stone at the Korean War Memorial in Washington, DC:
Freedom is Never Free.
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1 comment:
Yes, you were sheltered. That is why those young men, though now aged and dead, did what they needed to do. They intended you to be sheltered. They never told you about what they did and saw because too much of it was the stuff of nightmares.
However, they were sheltered, too. They never envisioned an America who would declare a devasting war on her unborn, her aged, on her infirm. Those old guys had no premonition of academics who would twist the ideals of adoring students by teaching them to despise the principals that created the most benevolent society on the planet.
You, Girlie, have been training for a different fight. At fourteen, you challenged a Supreme Court justice. At sixteen, you sat face to face with a powerful newspaper editor. They both blinked. You have already been skirmishing and it was so natural to you that you didn't even know it.
Your humility and gratitude show me that the training is nearly complete.
Yes, you were sheltered. On behalf of those who can no longer speak, "You are welcome."
Your Admirer,
(a middle aged guy from Western Oregon)
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