At least for a day, everything on this deployment has come full circle. I am back at my original post, where I just gave the invocation and benediction for an end of tour ceremony for a dozen of our soldiers who are heading home.
Between the conclusion of the Ragnar (still yet to learn the results), my trip up north, and today's ceremony, I think I have found my definitive marking point in transitioning from my last phase (movement and beginning of work at new post) to the next one (build on new work at begin thinking of life post-deployment).
Two of the soldiers that I am saying "bye" to here are my two designated battle buddies from the start of the deployment. One is a fellow believer who has been my intellectual sparring partner and best friend in the unit over the past several years. The other was my roommate for my first two months out here and also a very good friend and whose wife is now friends with my wife.
They will be leaving along with ten more of my soldiers from this post, joined by another dozen or so from my current post. Among those soldiers will be my chaplain's assistant. In God's providence, I grew quite a bit closer to him over this recent trip north. In part, this greater enjoyment of him arose from not being confined to a broom closet with him for hours on end each day. In part, I trust that God made me less judgmental toward perceived flaws that were likely reflections upon my own sin struggles. Ultimately, I will miss all of these gentlemen.
I am certainly not left friendless. Many old friends still remain, including my accountabilly-buddy. In addition, my old Reformed friend from early in the deployment, who subsequently went home and visited my home church, has just returned for another month (and I hope to see her here today or tomorrow). I am sure that she will carry good tidings from home, even as she carried good tidings back with her when she first left.
The changing of seasons. Of course, this isn't only a metaphor, but an atmospheric reality. It seemed as though summer was rapidly melting into a cold winter's ice, but a few days of an autumn respite are now coursing through the air. In fairly quick sequence, the man in the turret will go from being drenched in sweat to being bundled in layers to fight off the chill.
As for Veteran's Day, I am particularly grateful to those who served our country in Vietnam. Many volunteered out of duty, not for political reasons. Many more were drafted and had choice in the matter. Many parts of the planning and execution of the war were certainly ill-advised. But the fear of Soviet expansion was valid, and the war was indeed winnable. The day that Grandpa Cronkite declared the war was over (in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive) was the day we should've been celebrating the crushing of a most desperate VC offensive. And if Watergate hadn't occurred, we may have won the war yet.
All that said, our soldiers--the most noble and sacrificial of men--were made the scapegoats for the missteps of our politicians by many of our citizens. Soldiers could not go off post without changing into civilian clothes. They got off planes to survey a landscape at home that they never thought they'd see again, and there was no one there to meet them and express gratitude and love. If someone found out who things heroes were, they were as liable to spit on them as shake their hand. America's greatest monsters in those days were certainly not our soldiers, and not even our politicians, but us--the people. We betrayed those who risked everything for us. May we always remember this fact, that we might never turn on our guardians again.
To you, Vietnam veterans, who served in those dark years when both the war front and home front were a place of hostility, we owe the greatest debt of gratitude. Those who don the uniform now do so in the light because you first did so in the dark. I love our WWII veterans, but the greatest heroes are those whose work goes unrecognized--who embrace the mantle of obscurity with the knowledge that right was done by conscience and by country. You are our greatest generation and we, the soldiers of today's wars, stand upon the shoulders of giants.
