Honoring them comes from acknowledging all they are

Honoring them comes from acknowledging all they are
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
September 16, 2012

There is a part of the Nicene Creed

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Creator of life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke through the prophets.

There are many in this country ignoring the relationship we should have with the men and women serving this country everyday, risking their lives for the sake of others.

I have the privilege of spending most of my time with them. Some served during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq. Some were drafted while other enlisted. There are also National Guards and Reservists serving in wars as well as here back home when natural disasters strike, as police officers, firefighters and emergency responders.

The majority of veterans enter into these fields after their military service. Have you ever wondered why?

It is in their spirits, pulling them to go where few others would dare to and doing more for total strangers because they believe it is the reason they were put on this earth. If you ended all wars and there was absolutely no reason to ever go to war again, they would still find ways of serving others.

The only strange thing about this is we just don't get it. We don't understand how someone can want peace but train for war. It is if some of us want to find excuses to ignore them.

I have friends that will not ask a single question about what is going on with our veterans even though they know this is what I do. It is getting harder and harder to spend time with them. These men and women have the same basic design the rest of us do. The same issues we all go through are parts of their lives but they have that extra burden of putting their lives on the line, deploying into countries around the world and wondering if they will ever see their families again, then face coming home to communities without a single clue about where they were.

This is for them because the Holy Spirit called them to serve and they answered. We however decided that we did not have to help them do it.


Too many in this country want to blame them for going where they were sent, doing what they were asked to do and pretend we owe them nothing. I feel sorry for them if they cannot understand these other humans would do it all again no matter how much we abandoned and ignored them.