More Preaching To The Choir
Subject: the "warrior caste." Many of you nod your head when you hear this phrase, thinking about the men and women in your family who have served in the past and present (BTW, this thread does not include LEOs and fire-fighters; my gratitude goes out to them, but there IS a difference). Some, who for one reason or another, are the first in known memory to serve, and discourage family members from service. Regardless, your service is punctuated by two concepts: service and sacrifice. I know, loyalty, courage, valor and other virtues (and some vices, alas) are also building blocks in your experience.
Service is a self-motivation, though it could be influenced by tradition. You serve because you feel obliged to. Draftees had outs, but you saw them as cheats on your obligation. Volunteers chose service over non-service. Once the obligation was fulfilled to your satisfaction (or the extent of the law), you became a civilian. Some feel that their 'obligation' will be life-long. But it began with a choice. A choice to put your own needs aside for a while and help protect those who cannot or will not protect themselves. You entered harms way, or stood ready to. You even took some abuse from those you chose to serve. It might have angered you, or you disregarded it, or it affected you deeply. When your service was fulfilled, you made another choice and returned to the role of citizen.
But you left something behind; something that you were willing to go without, knowing you may never get it back. Time, probably, and the freedom your choice denied you for a while. Some lost innocence; others lost sanity. The sadder of us lost our morals, and others had their dignity ripped away. I won't even begin to categorize the physical losses many have endured; not because they aren't important, but because many of us who returned whole in body will never understand the trauma of your losses. But the fact that we all lost something is common, and for many of us an acceptable loss. This is known as sacrifice.
The families of veterans know these, even if they never know the other virtues. The wife who drives her husband in for PT in the morning. The husband with the children waiting at the pier as 'mommy's boat' leaves or returns. The moves. The smells of shoe polish and Brasso. Service of the family is more poignant; they often had no choice, but put up with it, waiting for that fateful choice to be made. And they know sacrifice; from the loss of sleep by the parent left behind, to The Telegram.
Why do I mention these, service and sacrifice? Doesn't the code monkey with a family have to endure the move from Seattle to Atlanta for the sake of the job? How about the geographically bachelor 'couple' who see each other when both get Christmas break? Isn't that sacrifice, or service?
Yes, but often they involve another kind of choice, a choice denied the service member. If code monkey thinks Atlanta is too dangerous, he/she can decline, and take up the repercussions with the union or a labor relations board. Military families have the corner market on geographic bachelorhood; but one half of the couple is not safely out of harm's way, even during peacetime. There is the threat of violence that the service member, and their family, experience up close and personally every day; in fact, if Code Monkey had to endure such daily threats, it means that some service member isn't doing their job.
It is something as simple as violence that give service and sacrifice a meaning the civilian never knows. Some think maybe they should, just to remind them that they have a choice. Others feel it is part of that obligation, to be the 'hard men' and women that allow the citizen to sleep peacefully. This is a choice we give to them.
Service is a self-motivation, though it could be influenced by tradition. You serve because you feel obliged to. Draftees had outs, but you saw them as cheats on your obligation. Volunteers chose service over non-service. Once the obligation was fulfilled to your satisfaction (or the extent of the law), you became a civilian. Some feel that their 'obligation' will be life-long. But it began with a choice. A choice to put your own needs aside for a while and help protect those who cannot or will not protect themselves. You entered harms way, or stood ready to. You even took some abuse from those you chose to serve. It might have angered you, or you disregarded it, or it affected you deeply. When your service was fulfilled, you made another choice and returned to the role of citizen.
But you left something behind; something that you were willing to go without, knowing you may never get it back. Time, probably, and the freedom your choice denied you for a while. Some lost innocence; others lost sanity. The sadder of us lost our morals, and others had their dignity ripped away. I won't even begin to categorize the physical losses many have endured; not because they aren't important, but because many of us who returned whole in body will never understand the trauma of your losses. But the fact that we all lost something is common, and for many of us an acceptable loss. This is known as sacrifice.
The families of veterans know these, even if they never know the other virtues. The wife who drives her husband in for PT in the morning. The husband with the children waiting at the pier as 'mommy's boat' leaves or returns. The moves. The smells of shoe polish and Brasso. Service of the family is more poignant; they often had no choice, but put up with it, waiting for that fateful choice to be made. And they know sacrifice; from the loss of sleep by the parent left behind, to The Telegram.
Why do I mention these, service and sacrifice? Doesn't the code monkey with a family have to endure the move from Seattle to Atlanta for the sake of the job? How about the geographically bachelor 'couple' who see each other when both get Christmas break? Isn't that sacrifice, or service?
Yes, but often they involve another kind of choice, a choice denied the service member. If code monkey thinks Atlanta is too dangerous, he/she can decline, and take up the repercussions with the union or a labor relations board. Military families have the corner market on geographic bachelorhood; but one half of the couple is not safely out of harm's way, even during peacetime. There is the threat of violence that the service member, and their family, experience up close and personally every day; in fact, if Code Monkey had to endure such daily threats, it means that some service member isn't doing their job.
It is something as simple as violence that give service and sacrifice a meaning the civilian never knows. Some think maybe they should, just to remind them that they have a choice. Others feel it is part of that obligation, to be the 'hard men' and women that allow the citizen to sleep peacefully. This is a choice we give to them.
