My husband is currently deployed and is struggling a bit with his role in the “bigger picture”. As I recently posted in my own blog, the men and women who deploy but remain behind the frontlines are often neglected and left out of the lime light. This creates a host of emotional ambivalence towards them. Over the years I’ve heard countless stories of men and women in non-combat career fields expressing shame and guilt that they aren’t “doing more”. And this is a tremendous burden on not only them, but also their families.
As we all know, the military does not run off guns and ammo alone. There are hundreds of other career fields out there that are just as crucial to the running of this war and this nations security. Unfortunely they’re often unseen/unsung heroes in their own right.
It has been something that has weighed heavily on my husbands heart/mind and now mine as I watch him question his worth after 14 years of honorable service. Ironically he was forwarded an email yesterday that sort of painted a bigger picture than what he was seeing. He doesn’t know who originally wrote it, but it certainly touches on something I think is important for all of us to remember and particularly those who serve, but don’t feel like it’s enough.
*Of course, the views expressed here are merely that of the sole creator of the message and do not represent the views of The United States Air Force, other military branches or the U.S. government.
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“A unique thing happened today that probably a lot folks in the United States are missing. Hundreds of thousands of people joined a protest in the freedom square of Teheran, Iran. At the same time people in major cities in Iran were wearing green clothes and green signs parading in the city streets. The protesters and those wearing green were all showing support for Mir Housein Mousavi who is running against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current president of Iran, in their national elections in two days. Unlike Ahmedinejad, who has been the “death to America,” “death to Israel,” “Holocaust denial” guy in news for the last few years… Mousavi and his followers favor trade and ties with the West and loosening of social restrictions!
Not only is this huge but, it is in large part the result of the work you and everyone in Iraq are doing. Day in and day you are vigilantly, carefully, and thoughtfully executing missions that are bringing security to Iraq, and data shows it’s working. Sometimes the biggest successes in foreign policy on the world stage are hard to perceive when they are actually happening. See, I believe that such a massive, brave social protest in Iran against the current leadership is only possible because the Al Qaeda/Radical Islam “brand”, if you will (I’m a sucker for marketing terms…;) is in steep decline. Iraq was supposed to be their big stand, you know — global jihad to the call against the U.S. in Iraq… we kicked the Soviets out of Afghanistan… we’ll kick the US out of Iraq. And it is fizzling out.
The whole holy war/jihad thing had considerable momentum when they were in the news everyday killing Americans and suicide bombing everything in sight. Idiots like Ahmedinejad seemed like regional leaders standing up to the superpower. Now many of the bombs in Iraq are planted instead of strapped to one’s chest… I think they’re (fortunately) having party recruitment problems. Not only that, but Obama gave a great speech in Cairo the other day. Osama bin Laden was reduced to saying things like “He only sounds good… don’t listen to his eloquent quoting of the Koran.” Did you notice he actually called Obama eloquent!
Iran has huge influence with the Shia in Iraq………[and] whether or not Mousavi wins in Iran the shift in thinking on Main Street in much of the Middle East is away from the firebrand fundamentalism -I see that as a direct result of your sacrifice!
I want to make sure that each and every one of you remember that your sustained presence here in Iraq at times may feel routine and “not on the front lines” but it has a real time impacting impression to this entire part of the world. Our abilities to provide the communication systems and vital support are directly enabling us to bring security and freedom to not only this country but the surrounding ones. So thank you for all of the hard work!”
via JustJenn
