Honored to Love

"F*** the Troops" 

Yeah, that showed up in my newsfeed yesterday. 

F the troops. 

Front and center in my facebook feed.

I know my blood should boil, my heart should race, every bone in my body should harden, my muscles should tense. Steam should probably shoot from my ears. 

It just makes me sad. So, so sad. 

Because just like almost always, it was followed by an ignorant rant about how soldiers are "too stupid" to get a "real job" or get "into college" so they "catch bullets". How they are uneducated, unsophisticated, unable to "think for themselves". That anyone who can kill another human being is evil, ungodly.

It makes me sad to know that there are people - too many people - who believe and say those things. It makes me sad that there was a time that I thought the same thing.

I could sit here and list the number of highly, highly intelligent people who devote their lives in service to their country. I could cramp my fingers up arguing about the education West Point and other military academies pour into their officer candidates. I could sit here and list the number of first sergeants I have known who despite their master degrees remain enlisted because that is the life they prefer. 

I could talk about how nearly every company commander - who was "too stupid" to "get a real job" - is personally responsible for the maintenance and accountability of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government equipment. I could talk about how much education is necessary for them to continue on in their careers. How even those at the lowest levels of this service - who are paid the least and demanded the most of - must know how to react to nine or ten different scenarios in a single breath, while maintaining the discipline necessary for handling a fire arm - sorry, "killing machine" - and protecting the lives of the comrades around him - sorry, fellow "murderers". 

I could talk about that.

I could talk about the single conversation I had with my husband about one of the moments he had to choose between his life and the life of his men, and a man - a "creature of God" - racing towards them  in a bomb-rigged vehicle. The "creature of God" willing to blow himself up in order to end both the life of my husband and the lives of the men he considered brothers. 

That "creature of God" who wanted to kill the future father of my children. 

I could talk about the "ungodly" soldier who carried out the body of a toddler so badly shot again and again and again and left in her bed that her body was filled with maggots. That toddler who was killed by her own people - those "creatures of God" - who punished her family for trying to build another nation for her - trying to build a better home for her. How "ungodly" of our soldiers to tenderly and heartbreakingly, carry her deformed and mangled body out to be buried. Her innocent, innocent body that was so sickeningly destroyed by another "creature of God". 

How "stupid" these soldiers must be to have compassion. How "ungodly".

I have learned through my own, personal struggle to overcome such ignorance, that we can't change the way some people think. That nothing I say or argue or beg will change the sentiment of this American who felt the need to type "F*** the troops." And that, that is what makes me so sad. 

I hope they are humbled enough to learn someday what I have been honored to be shown. I hope they will know someday what it is to serve - what it means. How honorably these men and women live - despite ignorance and hatred and disdain. 

I wish I could make them understand.

It makes me so sad that I can't.

I am so very honored to so intimately know what it is to love a nation, to love its people, to truly, whole-heartedly, humbly serve. 

How honored I am, to love a soldier.