“AMERICA NEEDS YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER”
by OPOVV, ©2014
(Oct. 1, 2014) — A plane goes down; a mail truck goes over the guardrail into the drink. After thinking, “Too bad” and “Tough luck,” my thoughts turn to the “What if’s?” as in lost mortgage payments (“Well, I mailed it;” “Ha-ha. The ‘check’s in the mail’ is already taken. Try something new.”) to a never-received birthday greeting from grandma; to a college acceptance notice; and a response to the question, “I love you, and if you still want to see me, let’s meet where we had our first dance on such-and-such a date, at such-and-such a time.” A letter never received, and someone, somewhere, waited until closing time, two lives irrevocably altered, yet always remembered as the beginning of a sorrow that will be with each of them until their last conscious thought during their last dying breath, each thinking the exact same thing, the saddest words ever thought: “What if?”
It has been said that “time heals all wounds,” but that may very well not be the case. As time marches towards its inexorable end (or does it?), festering can occur; rage may build; disappointments grow; helplessness may take a new identity of twisted and untrue thoughts, so yesterday’s conclusions may reach new and yet unexplored heights previously unimagined. Such is the mind of someone suffering from “Shell-shock,” or what is known today as the “Get-over-it” syndrome, sometimes called “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.”
It’s a shame, a crying shame, that some of our neighbors who join the military service come back messed-up in some degree. Heck, many have a hard time getting over the re-socialization process of Boot Camp. But, get this, every military person who was in combat doesn’t expect to see the enemy walking their streets when they get back to “The World,” as what our troops call the USA.
Imagine, if you can, a Vet arriving back from fighting the Germans during World War II, only to come home to see people walking their dog, or in the grocery store, or at the movie theater wearing a Swastika armband; or a Korean Vet coming face-to-face with a Chinaman wearing the North Korean winter uniform in Buffalo, NY, in the middle of January; or a Vietnam Vet seeing little people scurrying wearing black pajamas, speaking in undecipherable high-pitched squeaky voices; or of an Iraqi or Afghan Vet seeing burqas everywhere and Muslim men with their facial hair and unmistakable hatred in their eyes.
America needs the services of our Vets today more than we needed them while they were on active duty. Veteran: a military Oath-taker no longer on active duty. You Vets out there, you’re more important to us now than when you served, got it? So if any of you know a Vet, maybe you ought to think about passing this little editorial along. Share the wealth, as it is.
And here it is: America may very well be at the crossroads of her existence. Either she will survive Obama and the hoards of Muslims and illegal immigrants; either she will abolish Obamacare and the march to Socialism and, therefore, oblivion; either America will wake up and deport the Muslims and the illegal immigrants within her borders, or she will not. It’s the “will not” part where the Veterans of America may very well be the deciding factor in saving our country. So to any and all you Veterans out there who are suffering from illusions of total despair: stop it. America needs you now more than ever.
Forget the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their self-destructive Rules of Engagement; you don’t work for them anymore. When you are needed by the adherents of the Constitution; when your fellow Oath-Takers expect you to be in the field of battle, able, ready and willing, the ONLY ROE’s that you will be expected to operate under is just one: kill the enemy.
And so the “Notes Across the Chasm” is one of attitude more than time and distance. It’s the GI’s attitude that won World War II; it’s the Revolutionary Spirit that won the Revolutionary War; and it very well may come down to the attitude of our Veterans who’ll turn the tide of the next chapter of victorious wars that our country has fought.