The Deceased
Three lives that are no more.
Two
woman that will role over in bed to find an empty
space beside them.
And
one child whose father will be nothing more than a story told to him again and
again.
There
is no consolation for the fatalities. No
accolades of glory will make up for the losses endured by the survivors. Plans for three family’s future will be
altered inexcusably.
25
million people will never know the names of the soldiers who gave their own
futures for freedoms that most of us take for granted.
While
I was on break, I had the unpleasant opportunity to listen to an ignorant
comedian callously make his living trivializing the price that these men
paid. He didn’t know them, nor was he
worthy of the honor to know them.
But I did.
In
some respects, I wish I hadn’t. In a
twisted sort of way, perhaps many of us would rather not have played RISK or
other board games with them. Perhaps for
our own sanity we should never have joined them for a bar-b-que,
taken photos alongside them, or inquired about their families. Anonymity reeks
benefits when we read about deceased Americans.
Hundreds of lives end every minute.
We move through our lives grossly unaffected. Why couldn’t these men been equally
inconsequential.
Because they weren’t.
Ironically,
that comedian perfects his trade of political satire, because men like First
Sergeant Gifford, Sergeant Deckard, and Specialist Ford did exist. It’s generations of men like these that stood
strong behind an idea of freedom, that allows the
shallowness of others to be heard without retribution.
There
was a document once written, that expressed the idea that all men are created
equal. More importantly, it suggested
that all men, not just those geographically located on a single continent,
should be entitled to that equality.
If
I should be so lucky someday, to meet an Iraqi on
There
are a total of four offspring between two of these men. I hope that as these children mature, they
will see the image of the Iraqi flag, not as a symbol of their personal loss,
but as a shroud of their father’s blood that flies high over a free people
equally entitled to their own comedians, however mislead their routines may be.
To
Mitchell, Austin, Noah, and Makayla, I wish you this:
That someday you will overhear a person speaking in an unknown tongue. And that upon further inquiry, you will find
yourself in the presence of an individual whose own future was the result of
the noble trade that your fathers graciously and heroically made.
And
that I, was equally honored to have known them.
CPT
Daniel J. Green MD
Battalion
Surgeon, Task Force 4-64