[Vision2020] Personal Effects

[Tom Hansen]

>From "The Sandbox" blog at:

http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/

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PERSONAL EFFECTS
Name: A CPT in Ft. Hood
Posting Date: 10/12/2006
Stationed in: Texas
Hometown: Texas

A few days ago, Vice President Cheney came to Ft. Hood and addressed members
of the community and the post, on the eve of the 1st Cavalry Division's
return to Iraq. The Vice President was surrounded by purple heart winners
and those who had earned bronze stars with valor or higher medals. That was,
at least, the initial qualification given to be able to stand behind the
Vice President. The cameras were all there, and I have no doubt that the
public will see the Vice President and the soldiers. However, I was not
there to hear the Vice President's speech, whatever it was. Instead, a
fellow captain buddy of mine and I were across post, at the rear detachment
headquarters of a 4th ID brigade. I helped him in his duties as the summary
court martial officer as he inventoried and loaded up a 23-year-old
soldier's personal effects for shipment to her family. As we stood there,
looking at three cardboard boxes and a metal futon that comprised the
totality of what she owned, many things struck us. 

It was a sad experience for us. While we both lost soldiers during our first
tour in Iraq, we did not know this soldier, but felt as if we did. It seemed
somehow wrong, to be packing up a stranger's goods, not because of anything
extraordinary we found, but because of how extremely ordinary everything
was. She had a cheap television, a small microwave, some DVDs bought from
the PX, a paperback book or two, a few pairs of shoes, a clock radio, and a
plastic-drawered dresser full of clothes. We wondered, as we watched the
movers photocopy my buddy's inventory of her meager possessions before
taping shut the boxes that the soldier's father and mother would have to
open in a few days, whether it would scare or reassure Americans to see
this.  

We wondered if it would make people a little less easy about glibly
"supporting our troops" if they knew that this 23-year-old woman didn't
leave behind copies of the Constitution, books on warfare, or even an
American flag. She didn't have any pictures of her standing in front of Old
Glory or even any inspirational posters extolling patriotism, valor, and the
like. She left behind shoes and a television. She was a normal American, or
could have been, had she not been killed in Iraq. She didn't drape herself
in the flag in life; we have draped her in death. She could have been
anything; she was a soldier, but she never got the chance to be a wife or a
mother, never got the chance to pursue whatever interests she may have
wanted to when she returned from the Middle East. She loved and laughed just
like the rest of us, but she is gone from us now. It is too easy to say "She
was a soldier and gave her life doing what soldiers do," but it is a hard
thing to say when you stand there and watch what little she left packed up
for a grieving family.

I fear too many Americans think of soldiers without truly thinking of them
as people -- they may be soldiers, but they are so much more. They are
soldiers now, but may not always be -- they will become musicians, and
teachers, and businessmen, and journalists, and car salesmen. The difference
is, they are willing to die to protect those other Americans who are
musicians, teachers, businessmen, journalists, and car salesmen before they
go and join their ranks.     

As my buddy and I thought and talked about all of this, we wondered if the
press would come away from the politics of it all, and perhaps come to the
quiet rear detachment where senior NCOs and soldiers soberly watched yet
another young American's effects be quietly packed and shipped to yet
another grieving family. We wondered if the Vice President would step away
from the podium and see soldiers doing their duty, trying to help one of
their own who died doing her duty as best they knew how.

Most of all, though, we wondered about our society at large. We wondered if
they could grasp that this 23-year-old soldier who had given her life for
them left behind only shoes and a television. It got us thinking about what
separates a soldier and society. Finally, we figured it out. What is a
soldier? A soldier is someone who leaves behind in death the very things
most of us spend our entire lives trying to acquire.

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Pro patria,

Tom Hansen
Vandalville, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.