Remember our fighters

One of the things I like to do most is spend as much time as possible in helping my mom out and spending time with her and my sister, if nothing else just watching TV with them. If time is taken away then I perceive the interrupting situation a threat to spending those golden moments with my family.

Then I think, how much more so with our men and women involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These soldiers of ours are separated from their loved ones by many lands and wide oceans. What hardship it must be to have to face the possibility of death in a hostile existence while so far from their loved ones, a death that would forever more separate any fallen soldiers from their families, away from this earth, much less the great distance they endure while still alive.  That must be pressing on their hearts, minds and souls. 

The same goes for those loved ones they left behind, just as much in need of understanding and support for the sacrifices they have made as well in letting those they adore go off to a war some will not return alive from.

From what I remember of my mother’s endurance in such a matter when my dad did a stint in Vietnam during the late 1960s, those back here on the home front, as in all other wars before these two, worry deeply over the safe return of their beloved soldiers. And all too often comes to a tragic end when all that worrying does not come to a relief of the living coming home.

Weep for our soldiers abroad and pray for their swift and safe return, so that those still alive may reunite with those they love and left behind, to come home to familiar faces that were once fraught with worry for those in battle now expressing hope and relief. Extend much support for the loved ones left behind here at home with those very familiar faces yet fraught with that worry.

Thomas W. Elam

Pikeville