Soldiers deserve our support for send-off
When the soldiers in I Troop leave Thursday morning, we should show them our support in a very physical way. Let’s line the streets and highways along their route with citizens demonstrating their patriotism and respect for those who are sacrificing and risking so much for our freedom. Let’s do our very best to show them we are behind them all the way, and that even if we can’t physically follow them onto that foreign soil, we will be with them in spirit, and pray God be with them too and keep them safe.
We owe them a debt of gratitude. Let’s begin to repay that debt at the start of their long journey rather than at its end. Let us hope that our thoughts and prayers will help carry them through until we can meet them face to face once again, safe at home.
Our freedom means a lot to us. Our nation was founded on it. But, though it may sound trite, freedom isn’t free. In truth, the cost has always been dear. In times of war, the very lives of our sons and daughters may be forfeited to that debt, but they pay it willingly, and so must we, no matter how hard it is for us to accept that charge.
They must know their family and friends, their loved ones, and even their fellow citizens, are not bitter at the choice they have made, and that we accept their risk and sacrifice as our own.
And even we have to mask our tears, we should send them off with smiles and words of love and encouragement. The faces our soldiers see this Thursday morning will be with them for a long time. The memory of those faces and those words will have to sustain them through some long and lonely days and nights. Through the horrors of war.
We owe them that. We owe them a heroes’ send-off just as much as a heroes’ welcome when they return.
Many of these soldiers have already given years of service with the full knowledge this day might come, and now that it is here, they do not shirk their duty. They don’t consider their own sacrifice, they made that choice, but they do consider the sacrifice their families and loved ones make.
In all the interviews and conversations with these soldiers, they have asked for nothing for themselves, only asking that we think of the families they leave behind, that we support them and watch out for them.
Let us not forget that. Let us make it known that we accept that charge and take on that responsibility.
It’s hard to understand the true effect of war until it touches us personally. And in the midst of all this, it’s important to point out this community has already had many sons and daughters who have served on foreign soil in this war, and we certainly owe them the same debt of gratitude. We need to seek them out and laud their individual sacrifice and service even as these soldiers make the communal journey that seems to have drawn our community together as has seldom been seen in recent memory.
We must not forget the price any of our sons and daughters have paid for our freedom. As all of us who enjoy its benefits know, true freedom doesn’t come cheap.
It never has.
God bless our soldiers.