Veterans, thank you for my freedom | As I See It

I drove up Veterans Memorial Drive the other day, as I do every so often, just to remember.

The city of Kent was very thoughtful when they planned that drive for us, the vets. One end is on Military Road at the top of what was formerly 228th.

Military Road, as my dad told me when I was a boy, was the path that the Army used to convoy weapons, ammunition and other items during World War II, from Fort Lewis to Fort Lawton, now dubbed Discovery Park.

The Memorial Drive consists of going down a steep hill from Military Road to the beginning of the flat where it promptly turns back to 228th. I was traveling up the long steep hill, which is so appropriate for we who served.

Most of the American public has no idea what it means to be a vet. One day is certainly not enough to honor what sacrifices they have made for us. Let me give you a quick overview of what your son or daughter, father or friends have endured.

To be a vet is a lifetime of commitment that begins with the first day of shocking reality in training, like boot camp. “What have I done?” could be heard within the brain of the new recruit if hard exhaustive breathing and the need for sleep weren’t yelling louder.

This is the beginning of learning to pull together as a team of future vets. The one main purpose is protecting their families, protecting our way of life with values, with honesty, integrity and the freedom to raise our children to follow decency as our founding fathers intended.

Then reality sets in and the training ground becomes overseas. “The Bush,” The Sand Box,” “Down Range,” “Boots on the Ground,” loud noises, looking back over your shoulder and watching for bumps in the ground. The places and times where all that training keeps you alive, or someone who you trained with does, by offering his own life for you. People who are “oh, so special” left behind where the great question also lies, why wasn’t it me? Tuck that in your Ditty Bag and live with it for the rest of your life.

News comes from home, how Americans are objecting to me being over here, objecting to us fulfilling our intense team training, fighting for gas or money or corruption of some kind is what they may be saying. How do I deal with this? How do I digest this and ignore this attitude while I look at the devastations of my friends who have become closer than my brothers? They are my brothers.

Vets returning to families who don’t understand why they have changed, how they have trained, how they have lived and watched brothers and sisters become crippled in one fraction of a second. Nobody understands how their emotional insides torn out can never to be fully replaced, as they were in a happier time.

In some wars the vets have returned to rejection, but thankfully the American public has stepped up and changed that for today’s returning warriors.

But the American public can never understand what the vet lives, every day. And because of the lifelong sacrifice, beginning with that first training day to the “dearly beloved,” the vet is a very special person. He has lived a dedicated live, for what? He has lived for you, so when you enter the grocery store you can feel safe. Lived for you, so when you drive down the street, tanks and armed people from another country will not control your day. Served for you, so that you can feel as safe as possible.

The veteran’s life has been changed forever, so that yours can stay free.

Veteran, thank you for your service … but more, thank you for my freedom.

Don DinAlpha XR, a Navy veteran, regularly contributes to the Kent Reporter.