Meaning of service

[KANE]

For those who are able to say they have served- certain words have a richer meaning and leave an indelible mark.

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.' That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

That line came to me in a forwarded email. I usually don't share forwards- let alone content from them- in the CAC... but it resonated enough to warrant posting. That phrase made me remember the deeper meaning of serving my country.

There is great meaning in the gift of service and freely offering my life in exchange for the liberty and security for others.
It's men and women who have served, fought, and died that gave our rights to us. Free societies cease to be free when they forget the value of their freedom.

I've been to places where our freedoms aren't shared. I've seen the faces of fear, cultures of hate, and those who would remake the world in their own gaven image.

We are not lucky to have freedom- We bought it in blood.
We bought freedom from oppression in the form of our own blood- the blood of young men, young women, tested leaders. What may amount to something greater than one's self is the fact that we are also willing to fight, bleed, and die with others across the world so that they may share in those same rights.

Sacrafice.
We are willing as a society to lay down our lives for others. The giving of one's life for the hope that another may have a brighter future.

We are willing to give the ultimate gift to others- even if the polls say they don't get it or that Americans don't get it. We understand- we were once civillians too. Then we saw the face of evil in other men- other men we were sworn to defend our lands against.

Brothers in arms.
We fought with our buddies in the fox hole next to us. We died in service to our country but fought to save the buddy in the fox hole next to us. There are countless stories of heroism from those who saved the convoy, protected an Iraqi child, stopped a bomber, or saved a group of Iraqis just trying to live a normal life.

Freedom isn't free

Those lines were posted in numerous conspicuous places in Infantry Hall, the Airborne School, and Officer Candidate School. They were merely words to me until I served. Then like all other warfighters- it meant something. It meant something when I was on the border with Iraq, as my brothers in arms deployed, and as I talked with my friends on the flight line as their planes loaded. But it meant the most when I paid my respects to my friends who gave their lives in honor of this great country.

Adversity doesn't build character- it reveals it.
There are few things I look back on with as much pride as my service. Serving in the military made me who I am today. Without my experience in the service, I'd not have the confidence, leadership, drive, and can-do attitude that it takes to do what I do for those I do it for- God, Family, Country.

Honor, integrity, and serving something higher than the self means something. I'm proud to have learned the practical application of those traits from the best- my brothers in arms.

To each of you- thanks from a fellow veteran.

[Baldie88]

As a fellow veteran, thanks for posting this.

I will have the priviledge of driving a Gold Star Mother in the annual Veterans Day parade here in St. Louis. Our club normally drives all the dignitaries and honorees in the parade.

I will be wearing my old BDU field jacket since that's the only thing that didn't shrink in the closet since my retirement.

Ron
"Baldie88"
SMSgt Retired