Veterans, tiny fish in big pond back home

Veterans, tiny fish in big pond back home
by
Chaplain Kathie

They walk by us everyday. A shaved head, a unit tattoo, a determined walk and once in a while you catch a flash of light as the sun hits a metal leg, but most of the time they show no signs of having been in the places we occasionally read about in newspapers. You know the stories well. As you flip through the pages of your local newspaper, they are the stories you stay away from while searching for movie listings and the latest gossip on your favorite celebrity. You may spend more time on a report if it is in the obituary section but honestly, you may have only read it to see when the funeral will be so you know when to stay away from the area. You may be a very busy, important person with places to go and things to do so your time is precious to you. You may want to disregard what is happening so far away from here because in your mind, if it really mattered, it would be all over the news and there would be no escaping it. With so little reported on Iraq and Afghanistan, you may rationalize it as being something involving less than one percent of the population eliminating the possibility it involves anyone you know. The problem is, you may know them already but have no clue where they’ve been.

They are in your local movie theater. They go to your favorite bar and restaurant. They shop at the same grocery store you do. They go to your church but unless your pastor mentions they are home from a tour of duty, you’d never know it especially with some of the mega size churches around the country. They are on your college campus but they blend right in. They are the few, the proud, the veteran. Tiny fish in a big pond the rest of us live in pursuing our own happiness, worrying about our own lives and what we perceive as problems in them.

We have bills to pay, so do they. We have problems at work, home, in our studies, so do they. We have to put up with jerks driving cars talking on cell phones, so do they. They are just like us. For the most part, they look just like us. We assume they are no more special than we are but we miss the fact that while the rest of us guppies are swimming in the pond they are the ones ready to swim into the mouth of the big fish trying to eat us.

They are the people who join the military and the National Guards because while they want to live with the rest of us they know we need someone to be unselfish for our sake. We want someone else to step up when a storm comes, floods wash away roads, downs power lines, or when a fire threatens to wipe out everything. We want to have them show up but that never seems to translate into us showing up for them.

So here’s our chance. For the homeless veterans there is a Stand Down next weekend in Orlando. Sign up, show up and stand up for them. The information is on the sidebar of this blog. I can’t go. I’ll be in Buffalo with Point Man Ministries. What you’ll see there is not about sadness but about what is possible. You’ll see all kinds of people helping these homeless veterans simply because they care. Other tiny fish stepping up to take care of them for a change will warm your heart and you may even decide to do what you can for them after that. Go and meet these people, find out what happened to them and what you can do to help them.

If you are in one of the colleges here in Central Florida and you think you may see a veteran in one of your classes, ask them. If they are not a veteran then you just put the idea to ask into the head of another tiny fish classmate to wonder if someone he knows is. If they are a veteran then get to know them. Don’t be afraid. You won’t hear any gory stories. As a matter of fact you will hear very little about what they went through because none of them really talk that much to people they know well about any of it. Just know one thing. They were willing to die for you since you live in this country and they wanted to serve for the sake of this country doing what they were told was needed to be done. The politics didn’t matter. All they needed to know was it was what other men and women were being sent to do and they wanted to go too. They risked their lives for the sake of the people they served with but would a friend of yours do the same for you? These people are just like the rest of the tiny fish on the outside but on the inside they are committed, driven and a hell of a lot more compassionate than the rest of us.

If you work for a living, then do the same. Find out if someone is a veteran or not and spend some time getting to know them. If they go to your church, find out if they need any kind of spiritual help and then get the pastor involved. Put a section in your bulletin so that veterans can contact someone for help if they need it or if a National Guards/Reservist family needs some help while their spouse is deployed.

Think of it this way. While you are a tiny fish in this really big pond, wouldn't you want someone else in the pond to care about you? Now top that off with the fact they cared so much they set their lives aside to serve and now they are trying to play catch up.