Sensible Act of Selflessness
Ok all today is Service day. Most of the posts are up over at Miss Joan's place. This week's question: "Do you think the soldiers who are deployed and are from the affected areas on the Gulf coast should be allowed to come home and rebuild their communities/protect and help their now homeless families, even if it means YOUR soldier might have to go to Iraq/stay in Iraq longer?"
As always, mine is posted here and the rest of the posts are up at Seven Inches of Sense, so go read and enjoy.
As I type, Clark is preparing for the possibility of being redeployed. This time it isn’t to a foreign country, but to Louisiana. His unit is in the volunteer line to be called up so they can serve. He is excited about the possibility of going. Not because he wants to see the devastation; but because he feels like he could really help.
The question posed this week is whether I would willingly send him, not to New Orleans but back to Iraq so that other guardsmen could be with their families. I have spent a good deal of time thinking about this because for us, that is a real possibility. Clark is in the National Guard and apparently, it’s not uncommon for Guard units to rotate so that the soldiers can serve their own communities.
Well, Clark already spent a year in Iraq. It was brutal for us; but we survived. I don’t like the idea of sending him back; but I also know that he thrives in that situation. One where he can go out and do his job, get his hands dirty and feel like he is making a real difference in the lives of others. I also know after one deployment what I would have to expect in a second one.
I then turned my thoughts to the families in the Gulf Coast…if I were in their position, I would want my soldier there with our family. I would want him to be able to rebuild his own community before rebuilding a foreign nation. I do believe that the job our soldiers are doing in Iraq is important; but for those who have family in the hurricane-ravaged South, home is their rightful place.
So yes, I would choose to bring home the guardsmen overseas to help in their own communities even though it would mean sending Clark back to Iraq and the horrors that still plague him from his first trip there. I would choose to send Clark back simply because if the situation were reversed, I would want someone else to be selfless enough to allow my soldier to come home.
posted by Audrey @ 10:35 AM
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