During World II – when we had millions of Americans in uniform but a much smaller total population than we have today – many of our families were personally affected.
We prayed for our servicemen and women, wrote to them frequently, and hung on every word about what they were doing, and the dangers and difficulties they were facing.
We have a great many American men and women in uniform throughout the world today. But because they are far fewer than in some previous wars, and because our home front lives generally are little disrupted, many of us may tend not to think as much about our military personnel – unless one of them happens to be “ours.”
One of our closest military bases is Fort Campbell, Ky., on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, near Clarksville, Tenn. It’s the home base of the 101st Airborne Division, which has been engaged in hard fighting in faraway Afghanistan. But unless we have had a member of our family in the 101st, we may not have been aware that 125 of the soldiers in just that division have been lost in a little more than a year, since March 2010.
In a ceremony at Fort Campbell, Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell, who recently returned from Afghanistan, pondered: “Was it very tough? Did we have soldiers hurt and killed? Yes, that’s what happens in war. What I tell people is that their sacrifice was not in vain. The mission that we have over there is very, very important.”
We need to remember that truth – and our courageous troops – personally.