Mourning the unknown

First, please read this post by my fellow bloggy friend Samantha. Just one.

Read it and then come on back here. I'll wait.

::busy work::

Okay, how awesome was that post?!? I have got to read that book.

I actually sat down and started to write a post this morning about the men that lost their lives. As the families are starting to speak to the press and the names and further details are being released, this (at least for me) is changing from a horrible tragedy to what seems like a more personal one even though I didn't know anyone involved.

I lead a pretty sheltered military wife life as military lives go. R does not get deployed nearly as frequently as many other areas of the Air Force and no where near as often as the other branches of the military do. For this, I'm grateful every day. When I met R, he was in the Army, serving in the 82nd Airborne. It was a totally different life than the one we lead now. It seems a million miles away.

Then something like this tragedy happens, and I'm reminded again how fleeting and non-guaranteed life is. The  husband of a friend of ours and former coworker of R's is EOD (explosive ordinance disposal). I don't know how she deals with it.

Then I think about all the lives lost: through enemy fire, friendly fire, training accidents, suicide, or as an after effect of defending our country and fighting in foreign lands in fights that aren't even ours. It's overwhelming. It breaks my heart.

I love my country. I'm so proud of my husband for his service. I'm so grateful for all the men and women that have served, are serving, will serve..... I'm indebted to the all the service member's families who have also served and who have paved the way for me to survive this life. It's no Army Wives episode (at least not for me).

Whether or not you agree with our campaign in the Middle East (or anywhere else for that matter), please just remember this: that number you hear on the evening news? It's so much more than a statistic. There's a story behind every single one of those numbers and while we will likely never know it, the least we can do is honor it.