Love and War

This weekend I spent a lot of time watching war movies and didn't realize how naiive I was about what actually occurs to the men and women at war. I do my best to support our troops but to be honest our Government needs to do better by them as well. For example, a young man is drafted to war and he is taken out of civilian life and thrown into a war zone, his defenses have reached a new height almost a paranoid state of existing, his love for mankind has to turn a blind eye due to survival, his own. Imagine if you will being that person who just left an ordinary life to enter Hell. Becoming a killer so that you are not killed, pushing down that deep regret of taking someone's life because of saving your own, sleeping at night to dream about the horrific, realistic, nightmarish day he just retired from, befriending a fellow soldier he's never met before but instantly feels a sense of comradery only to see his new friend's body lying lifeless on the desert ground. All of these plights I just mentioned are real and our soldiers suffer from this reality. How come our government doesn't do more? How can we as a nation not appreciate the true sacrifice a soldier will make for this country and the people in it? How come after the Korean, Vietnam and Iraqi wars there is not a fix to deprogramming our soldiers so that when they are reintroduced to society they don't feel at odds. I know some soldiers and I think they are two very special men they have touched my life in a fashion that I've yet to know...their strength, compassion, responsibility, discipline has opened my eyes to a new way of thinking they actually hipped me to a world I knew so little about and I can not thank them enough for personally enhancing my awareness. I never realized how huge a heart a Soldier truly has until meeting both of them.