Happy Days!

My son is safely home from Iraq. You may not know how happy that makes me feel. I have spent the last several months wondering what and how he is doing in Iraq. Fortunately, my son was able to call home just about every weekend from the airbase he was stationed at in Iraq. On each of the calls he always told me that nothing exciting was happening in his area.

But I know my son. He does not lie but I could tell that he was not telling the entire truth. Having spent several years in the military myself I know that there are situations while deployed that you cannot talk about what is going on until you have been properly debriefed and informed that you are now allowed to disclose that privileged information.

When I was in the service, the Vietnam Conflict was ending. My parents said they worried about everything I had did while stationed overseas. When I joined the Special Forces (commonly called the “Green Berets”) I was exposed to things that I was not allowed to tell anybody, even my family. Later, as I got debriefed from these various missions, I was allowed to tell some of what we did. And I still have secrets I do not know if I am allowed to talk about. None of the secrets are now a threat to national security but they are secrets from that time none the less.

The general public rarely knows what our military personnel do as part of their mission requirements and from my perspective that could be a good thing. Soldiers are sometimes required to do horrible jobs in horrible working conditions and continue to be alert even after days without sleep. But this is what is required of any service member. Our service members have volunteered to protect our country. Our service members must do whatever is necessary to accomplish the mission in a time of war. I am proud say that I was a volunteer and I will stand up and salute all our service members at any time for the job they do and the jobs they have done.

But today I am happy. My son is safely in the states and will be home today. We are having a party for him tonight with his friends and family. He left here still very much a boy but he has returned a man. He has seen things he has talked about and I am sure he has seen things he has not and may not talk about.

I am happy today. The only sad part for today is that we still our military involved in this conflict. Our freedom we enjoy is not free. Our freedom is paid with the efforts and sometimes the lives of those who volunteer to protect our freedom.

To our national leaders, resolve this issue, complete the mission and bring our troops home. Only then can we all be 100% happy.