So how do I accept what my husband does for a living? Quite easily. He serves his country and does so courageously, next to other respectable men and women. He represents America with the utmost dignity while overseas. The Army is lucky to have him, and so am I. While people sit back and criticize what soldiers do, my husband risks his life over and over again. Let’s be honest: It’s a job that most people don’t want. Many don’t think about it because other people do it.
Other people do it.
Instead of trying to figure out how to accept or justify or understand what my husband does because you don’t believe in war, I’d beg you to know that no one wants war; no one likes war. We’d all love a perfect world, but we do not live in one. Our country is at war; two of them, actually. Soldiers, my husband being one of them, have to deploy. We, as families, have to worry and wait and hope.
I believe that the next time somebody asks me how I accept what my husband does for a living, I will simply tell that person to appreciate my husband’s service and to enjoy his or her freedom while my husband does what his country asks of him.
This is a truly moving piece. I have just read it aloud to my own daughter, with whom I am staying. She has been a military wife for something over three years. Her husband is a Captain (soon to be Major) in the US Cavalry, and has spent the last three years working with Strykers. If he hadn’t been notifed of his coming promotion recently, he would have been in Afghanistan now with his brigade, and probably in proximity with this woman’s husband. Instead, he is soon to begin training as a strategist — and we have been with them as they pack up their home in order to move.
Born the same month as the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, their shadow has meant that I have leaned in a pacifist direction the whole of my fifty years as a committed Christian. I confess that I have not always been as complimentary about the military as I should have been. During the last decade I have repented many times of some of the things I have said in the past.
However, in this troubled and unstable world it is courageous men like John, my son-in-law, and Georgie Hamlin’s husband who are seeking to create conditions that will ultimately lead to greater peace and stability. She is right: no one wants war, least of all the soldiers that I have met. I do not share their vocation, but I honor them for their service and pray that we all keep them in our prayers. I pray that my leaders (I am a dual US and UK Citizen), manage the affairs of state with the wisdom that enables peace to prevail, and a return of prosperity for all persons everywhere.