VOICES

It's The Least We Can Do

I have an aversion to pain. That’s why as a kid when my friends used to ask me to go paint balling with them, I’d say, “You guys get the Kevlar vests, I’ll keep score.” They stopped asking me to Lacrosse games because I moaned every time someone got whacked. Equipment with names like “Warrior Razor Head,” “Titanium Attack Shaft,” and “Shotgun Shoulder Pad” are not my idea of recreational gear. The closest I get to danger on a regular basis is Kung Fu chess. Oh yeah, I love skiing downhill. I go scuba diving and jump out of planes at 12,000 feet, too, but not while being shot at, which is why I think our service men and women are awesome. They do that sort of thing all the time but with projectiles flying at their heads. These aren’t paintballs gunning for them but real, live bullets!

A few weeks ago I had a chance to talk with a group of Army and Navy enlistees who had just returned from Iraq and were out for the Torrance Armed Forces Day Observance. They offered me a tour of their tanks, missiles, cranes, and other cutting-edge battlefield technology—arresting to say the least. But what impressed me more was hearing these soldiers talk about what they do with such genuine enthusiasm. “We’re just a bunch of adrenaline junkies,” one of them laughed. “It’s our job,” another added modestly. I studied them from head to toe. Dressed in battle fatigues, every one of them was buff, stood tall and alert, arms folded across his or her chest, eyes focused but roaming like a prairie dog’s tracking movement along the horizon. “Right,” I grinned. “Just a job.” They turned to go. I reached out and with a hearty handshake said, “And you do it well. Thank you!”

At night after a hot shower, dinner with my family, and rendezvous with my favorite novel, I pull a down comforter over my chest, prop my head up on a mound of soft pillows, and imagine those soldiers back in Iraq. My parents turn on the late night news, and I can hear muffled sounds streaming down the hall. Soft breezes rippling in waves across gently sloping sand dunes? No, I don’t think so. Maybe hurricane force storms blowing grit into their eyes. I squeeze my lids tight. A sudden stream of tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Party poppers? My face begins to burn. Make that machine gun fire out the rear end of a Blackhawk. I can almost see colors explode in the darkness. A fireworks celebration over a mosque? More like a car bomb by the roadside. A glob of red paint on that soldier’s uniform? No, that would be the inside of his chest glowing through the gaping hole left by the shrapnel that just took his last breath.

Slowly I fall asleep. For me today is over. For many soldiers today, life is over. I will see tomorrow, my home, my family and friends. They won’t. Because they are willing to go to battle, I am free not to. Because they risk their lives to preserve liberty, I am free to go to school and pursue my hobbies without worry of violence or death. I am safe. Those I love are safe. Our country is safe . . . for now, and for as long as there are brave men and women willing to defend us. May God bless and watch over our courageous heroes, and may every young person take the time to say, “Thank you,” whenever we pass a member of our military. It’s the least we can do.

by  Matthew Cook

© June 12,2006