COMMENTARY>>As my brother goes off to war

By Col. Kirk Lear
314th Airlift Wing vice commander

This morning I spoke with my brother, our last talk before he leaves his home for another year of combat operations “downrange.” A Soldier in his third decade of service, he was to head home to celebrate an early Christmas this afternoon with his wife and two daughters. His daughters will awake the day after tomorrow to a house without their dad, as if he’s simply gone off to work on yet another day.

Tonight, as his girls fall asleep, he’s packing bags and spending a few tentative hours with a resilient wife of 13 years. He knows it will be hard for him not to think of the flight ahead and the controlled chaos that awaits him far away, helping to lead 4,000 troops into combat. His first troops are already there and engaged with the enemy – word came yesterday of the brigade’s first Soldier wounded in action. My brother’s understandably thinking most of his troops, I suppose, and not his family. His wife understands – he is, after all, a Soldier – he will focus on the mission and the troops he’ll lead. Tomorrow night, she’ll forgive him those words he leaves unsaid, as she did on the last deployment, knowing he’ll think of her and the girls in every quiet moment of his next year.

Our conversation reminded me of a talk long ago with my great-uncle Stanley, who stepped off a glider onto French soil in the second week of June, 1944. With training stateside, a long preparation in England for that epic D-Day invasion and subsequent combat across France and Germany, he was away from his new bride for 33 straight months. He longed for her every day, and dreams of Louise finally saw him safely home.

Every day our service members leave their cherished homes and routines to serve overseas. America’s best and brightest -- volunteers all -- wonder how well they’ll perform their mission and how they’ll fare under pressure. Like Uncle Stanley, they set off on the uncertain adventure, confident in their training and leadership, and hope that they’ll return to find their lives as perfect as they left them.

I’m grateful for my brother’s service and for the Soldiers who have his back. I’m thankful for his devoted wife and my two young nieces, who’ll cherish occasional phone calls and e-mails and look longingly at pictures of him next year. I’ll pray for the families left behind, who’ll knit themselves together, take care of each other’s needs as best they can, and eagerly await the return of their Soldiers.

As my brother goes off to war, I thank God for the giants’ shoulders on which his brigade stands – two centuries of American patriots who have climbed uncertainly onto horses, trains, transport ships and aircraft bound for imminent battle with our enemies. These veterans - the long line Gen. Douglas MacArthur poetically anointed “a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray” - are our greatest legacy and hope, unselfishly setting America apart from all other nations.