Can you imagine sacrificing your life for thousands of people who are total strangers?
So many soldiers have put their lives in jeopardy to keep us safe here at home. How often do we think about them? Our brave selfless heroes put themselves in harm’s way to protect their loved ones but also many strangers. Do we think of them more than once a year? We honor them on Remembrance Day, but we should be the thanking them every day.
Thousands of veterans gave their lives in wars while we sat safely at home. Our veterans suffered many hardships out in the fields.
Could we live in foxholes or in bunkers or just out in the open while being shot at or bombed? No! Could we sacrifice our creature comforts to walk quietly through water, crawl through mud, run up hills not knowing what is waiting on the other side? No! Could we get into a war plane to fly a dangerous mission no knowing if we would return alive? No!
How many of these brave heroes never returned giving the supreme sacrifice and leaving grieving families behind? How many soldiers walked on or slept the ground in the rain or snow without shelter? They sacrificed their comfort to protect us.
We can’t begin to imagine being next to a buddy who is suddenly wounded or killed. How would we feel watching the horrific scenes these brave people saw daily? Is it any wonder that many of the soldiers were never the same after returning home? So many still suffer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. How many loyal veterans have returned home with no jobs or homes and are forced to live on the streets? How could we treat them like they don’t matter? We should be taking every possible action to help and protect our vets like they protected us. Because they are homeless, they are looked down on as something we scraped off our shoes. What is wrong with this picture? They should be honored not frowned upon.
We are taught to love each other. Killing another person is a sin. Then you are given orders to kill the enemy. How do you justify in times of war that it okay to take another person’s life? Can our teaching be so easily reversed? That is a complete contradiction of God’s law. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be, could you? It must have been torment to go against God’s teaching to kill and come back home carrying a lot of guilt.
Thousands of our soldiers have returned minus arms, legs, eyes and they are expected to adjust. Some are disfigured from bombs. Do we appreciate their service more than once a year? Do we thank our Wounded Warriors? Do we make any effort to help them? We should be making every effort to assist them.
To all our soldiers past and those currently serving Canada and the U.S. we owe you a huge debt of gratitude that we will never begin to repay. We thank you and pray that you will be richly and abundantly blessed many thousands of times.
Barbara Jackson, ACW Diocesan Council President