Today we honor those Service Members who have died. During my last deployment, our Battalion lost 2 Soldiers, my current Battalion lost even more.
Soldiers/Sailors/Marines/Airmen, they join the military knowing full well they could die. They put their lives on the line for our freedom. Some do it for benefits, some do it for money, but far more do it for God and Country, all of them do it because they believe in something.
While ordinarily we would celebrate those who died and remember those Service Members who sacrificed their lives. Those who were savagely blown up in my current unit I never met. In my old Battalion I knew one of the two, and I only knew him in passing, yet the impact of their sacrifice stays with still.
I remember the day it happened, it was just over two years ago. I remember getting called into our Combined Division Operations Center and reading the reports. The initial reports were more than grim, then seeing photos of the terror attack, they made me cringe. That day transformed our deployment. We renamed our classroom for one of the fallen Soldiers, we renamed our conference room for the other. Last year, after Iraq had closed down and we were fully home at Fort Riley we rededicated our home station classroom and held a second memorial service.
Our actions were not enough. But they were what we could do. Today go thank someone in the Armed Forces. Thank the families of those serving, those families give us the strength to go out and put our lives on the line. Those spouses, and children, they often entered into the relationship after a Service Member was already joined be it born or married after service was initiated. Family are the real heroes here. They tolerate longer than normal hours, they find ways to cope with months of separation at a time. They have to pick up the pieces when one of us doesn’t make it home.
So if you see my wife, my children, or even my ex-wife, thank them. Don’t thank me, I joined because it was the noble thing to do. I did it to make the world safer, to make this country greater, I joined because I wanted to preserve our rights for the next generation. My ex-wife, she let me join after we were already married, and my current wife well she married me knowing full well what it meant to be in the Service. They made the sacrifices, I just did what needed to be done.
For the families of SFC Beattie, and PFC Mora, we haven’t forgotten their sacrafice, nor have we forgotten your loss. Thank you for your sacrifce and know that you are in the thoughts and prayers of thousands of people this day two years later. http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2011/05/1-63-armor-honors-sfc-clifford-beattie-pfc-ramon-mora-jr.html
