Someone asked me recently why, why do you love soldiers? I'm a divorced woman, divorced from a soldier, and I've spent my entire adult life around soldiers. I've cared for their wives and children, mailed the care packages, fed their cats and dogs while they were away, watered their gardens, written letters and cards. More than anything I have loved them. My appreciation runs deep, the admiration I feel runs thick in my veins.
I will never love anyone more than I love soldiers.
But why?
Military men possess certain characteristics that differ from the rest of the general population. These men are dedicated to something larger than themselves even when their own personal ideals and goals differ from the goal at hand. They are good at proceeding with a mission and following through on an objective. They make good leaders, are good role models, decision-makers and team players. More than anything, they form a brotherhood with the people they train and fight with, which from my perspective is something untouchable from the outside but is a kind of emotional bond that speaks volumes about their capacity for love and an ability to give of themselves. It is a rare person who will fight and die for another.
I suppose I want to be part of that, to feel some of that and maybe have it rub off on me somehow. I know in my personal relationships with soldiers, those of the serious kind, I have found joy and depth in ways I never could have imagined. There has also been sorrow and sadness beyond anything I could imagine as well. I don't have words to explain how it feels when someone you love is leaving for a violent, bloody war zone and as you watch them leave, you don't know if you will ever see them again; how it feels as you hold your children as they cry and wish that Daddy wasn't a soldier; or how it feels to raise these kids and teach them pride in what their Daddy does.
There are no words to explain how it feels when someone you love comes home a completely different person than when they left, either physically or mentally or BOTH. There are no words to explain how it feels when someone you love does not come home at all.
I recently said goodbye to someone that I love. This is his third tour in Iraq. After the first tour, he came home deaf in one ear and with nerve damage down the left side of his body. After his second tour, he came back with severe PTSD, collapsed vertebrae and traumatic brain injury. There are no words to explain how it felt watching him leave, wondering what in the hell good this is doing anybody to have him in combat anymore. But as long as the docs say he is good to go, he is going to fight because that's who he is and that's what he does. And as much as I hate it, I admire it so much that it makes me shake.
The day before he left, we didn't talk much. There isn't much left to say at that point.
But I spent that day with him because wanted him to have something to look back on, something to sustain him when things became unbearable and lonely and bleak. Because based on his emails and the stories of others I know who have been there, most of that time spent deployed is a soul-crushing, crippling loneliness. And even though I say I understand, there is no way that I can because I have never been there. But in my own mind, I cannot tolerate the thought, that brave men (and women) who put themselves out there to fight and protect us, who are forgotten in the media and popular culture, they are doing what they have to do all the while feeling abandoned and miserable and alone, and that's on a good day. Then there are the times of sheer terror.
I choose this kind of life. I choose to be part of it, no matter how drama-filled and intense it may be. I choose this kind of man because of the content of his character and I choose to try to deal with the consequences that come with it. I choose to try to be patient, to endure the withdrawal of affection, the confusion and pain because it's worth it.
So when I'm asked why why soldiers this is the only answer I have:
Because they're worth it.
