Page 107 - Firehouse Pond

Who protects the Red Cross when they get caught in the crosshairs of a civil

war in a foreign nation? Who comes to the aid of the church groups
spreading the hope of Christianity to impoverished people in Africa?

Are you aware that we have soldiers all over the world at any given time
wearing the blue beret of the United Nations? If the average US citizen was
aware of all the places our soldiers are in service, I believe they would be
surprised.

Perhaps you watch the twenty-four-hour news cycle and instant reporting
about soldiers being sent to Africa to “fight” Ebola. But do you “think” about

that news? Do you ask: “Are they properly trained and equipped? Do you
ever wonder if the young men and women knew they might be used for such
a mission before enlisting? The “Other duties as assigned” classification is a

wide-open gate for our government to walk through.

Ask yourself: Should our military be used in these situations? In my opinion,

more soldiers experience life-changing events during a TDY mission than all
other “non-combat” assignments combined.

Witnessing the slaughter of women and children; the site of mass graves for

their compassionate burial and the stench of decaying bodies often leave
ghosts in soldiers' minds forever. It changes one’s perspective of mankind in
an instant.

I have experienced such events and have had terror set in and influence my
actions and alter my soul. Do you think you could experience any of these
without life-long images haunting your everyday life?

The visual images of bloody, torn and broken bodies. The sounds of crying
and screaming. The stench, indescribable, at least by this soldier, of just one

child whose body has been left to decay on a roadside; multiply that one child
by the hundreds and add the children’s mothers.

They were often the result of or in the course of a battle of warrior tribes in
some faraway place we can’t even find on a map.