Remembrance.

I like to keep a list of topics to write about in the notes section of my phone.  Topics that pop into my head at random, while I’m in the shower, or in the middle of the night, or that someone else asks me to write about.  I normally have no problem sitting down and whipping something up, but for some reason, today, nothing on that list is inspiring me.  What is inspiring me are the men and women who we commemorated yesterday.

I could turn this into a political post and give my two cents on how our government treats our veterans. I know from an insider’s perspective how so many of them are not given the services they deserve, and so desperately need.  I see men and women begging on street corners, some of them having given up a limb or their sanity in order to serve their country, and in return been forsaken and forgotten….but I won’t go there.  Not today.

I want to focus on the heroism of these people.  People we tend to take for granted… because how many of us go about our daily lives thinking about the fact that someone else is out in the world protecting our rights and freedoms…and all of those who came before them?  I hate to admit it, but I don’t…..maybe not as often as I should.

Today my boyfriend and I spoke to an older gentleman we always see walking his dog at the local park.  A gentle giant with his well loved rescue pup.  We knew he had worked as a lifeguard when he was a young man, but today we learned that he had been a Navy SEAL for over a decade.  

He told us about the complexities of being on active duty, and what it does to a person’s psyche.  The atrocities he lived through are impossible to truly understand.  He said there is no way you can describe these things to someone unless they’ve been through it themselves.  I believe it.  We live such protected and coddled lives in comparison…and we are afforded that luxury because of people like him.

I think about my paternal grandfather, my great uncle, and my dad.  All men from a long line of heroic Hungarian warriors. Military men and freedom fighters.  My dad, had to flee Hungary before he made it to an age where he could serve in the military, but he stepped up to the plate when he was called to.  As a young teen, he  helped his father and uncle save seven Jewish families from being sent to concentration camps.  He helped his father save a group of young American airmen who had to parachute out of their planes and ended up in the fields near one of his relative’s homes. He worked in cooperation with the American military as a spy against the Russians.  He did his active duty.

The men on my father’s side of the family, because of their royal and noble heritage, were all deeply steeped in the military. They didn’t sit in palaces being waited on hand and foot while sending out others to the frontline. They went out there and fought the good fight with everyone else.  The stories I heard growing up of how they all played parts in fighting against the Red Army, and the Nazis sounds more Hollywood than reality…but it was real. Very real.  Just as real as it is for any other other veteran.

People like this are cut from a different cloth.  They are courageous, loyal, and self-sacrificing.  They do what no one else wants to do…they give up time with their loved ones, go through unimaginable physical and mental strain, give up on all the comforts we take for granted on a daily basis, and live without knowing if they will even so much as make it to the end of the day.  

How many of us could do that?  How many of us would?

I imagine these people have a sense of honor, commitment, and loyalty far stronger than the average person, and can teach us a lot about those things.  Next time any of us have the opportunity to sit and listen to a veteran, regardless of age or country of origin, we should listen. Closely.  

We live in an age where loyalty, honor, and commitment have become nothing more than words used on Instagram quotes.  When the going gets tough we quit our jobs, our sports teams, and our relationships…..we find it easier to lie, cheat, and steal than fight through the “bad stuff” and warrior through it.  

We don’t want to sacrifice our comfort levels. For anything. That’s why we need to listen to these heroes….not just out of the respect which they deserve in spades.  Our veterans can offer us perspective, and the kind of life lessons that we need to hear now, perhaps more than ever.

header photo by LTapsaH @pixabay

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