Where Have All The Soldiers Gone

He sat all alone in the corner of a small greasy spoon cafe in a tiny town in the panhandle of Texas. I have always been drawn to old men as characters, as well as for the vast experiences they have had and stories they can tell. Many, I'm sure, are embellishments of the truth but they are great stories just the same. I have especially been drawn to old cowboys for what they represent to me. The history, heritage, and what has been called the "brotherhood of the horse".

I ordered my food at the counter like everyone else and looked around to see where I might sit. He looked up and seeing me, big black hat, pants tucked in the tops of tall boots, and big rowelled spurs jingling from behind, he offered for me to join him. As he ate his hamburger and I my chicken fried steak, cream gravy, and mashed potatoes, he began, without invitation I might add, to tell me story after story. None of them were long, drawn out, or in very much detail but they were pictures into his past, and a colorful past it was. As he spoke of his time in the war, his wounds, his loss of everyone else in his platoon, and the struggles he had in his life since then, I hurt for him and for the first time in my life, over thirty years worth at the time, I began to realize how painful and damaging the memories of war must be. The things we ask of the young people who go and fight for freedom, ours and that of others, are not only very difficult, and dangerous, but also scar them emotionally and mentally for life. His was a tortured soul that turned to drunkenness until he passed out as his only means of sleep not interrupted with terrible nightmares. In the end, it had cost him everything. Family, friends, everything, until he sat alone eating in this hole in the wall cafe and telling his story to a complete stranger.

Thousands like him have returned from countless wars just as damaged as he was. It all started with a noble cause. A people oppressed or a people oppressing others in a foreign land that needed help. Many of those called to serve had to drag out an old atlas or textbook from a dusty shelf, cabinet, or the attic to even find where in the world this far off place was where he would be going to fight. They went down and signed up against the wishes of mothers, girlfriends, and wives. Not all were taken but they took plenty. They packed their bags and what few things they could carry and while crying family members watched, they walked down the dirt road they lived on headed for town to catch a bus, to a train, to a checkpoint, then on to a camp where their training would begin. As quickly as could be justified, they would be deemed ready for battle and shipped off. Some had a gleam of patriotism shining brightly in their eyes as they traveled. Before long, much of the gleam would be snuffed out. War is hell. It's not just a cliche'. It is the truth. Good men fighting evil men to abolish the evil they do and replace it with freedom and justice, but it is still hell. Our brave young men are buried in graves across the nations of the world whose present would be much different if we had not injected ourselves into their past. They wrote letters to loved ones here at home that have been kept in shoeboxes for what now must seem, to those who still take them out and read them from time to time, to have been a lifetime ago. Actually it was many lifetimes ago. Lifetimes of men who would have become fathers and grandfathers by now but were never able to because they gave their lives to make it possible for me and you to grow up in a free nation and be fathers and grandfathers. Some of the ones who survived, at times wished they hadn't, like my old friend at the small west Texas cafe where I met him and heard his story first hand. Some never left VA hospitals where they were sent because they died later of injuries or were so beat up and emotionally damaged they could not escape their pain enough to re-enter the everyday world we take for granted. Vast numbers of them reach around their little children now and hug them with prosthetic arms or run and play with their children in the park on prosthetic legs. To the parents whose child never came home from war, those are the lucky ones. At least they are alive. There is no possible way to express enough gratitude to any of them. None of those parents sitting by the side of the dirt road or on a platform at a train station waving goodby could have known that they would never see their sons again. Their sons had no way of knowing they would never see home again. That alone is more than we can ever fix, cure, or repay. Worse than that, we don't deserve the sacrifice they gave because of how poorly we have provided for, protected, and helped them as they have returned, in many cases. We cannot do enough for them and we certainly are not doing too much. I know, we give many of them silver stars, bronze stars, medals of honor and any number of other such awards, and their bravery needs to be acknowledged, but none of those awards bring back the dead.

Now there is turmoil in parts of the world like we've never seen, even though we have sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers and spent billions of dollars. There is no end in sight. More people will have to wave goodby to their children and never see them again. The Lord said there will always be wars and rumors of wars until He comes again in all His glory and ends everything. I say, "Come, Lord Jesus, Come! Enough is enough." Man will keep going until he destroys everyone and everything, including himself. That's what we do. Apart from God there is no justice, nothing good, nothing right, nothing pure, and certainly nothing holy in this world. We can only pray that He leads us and that we will hear Him when He speaks. Then it's up to us. But, will we even be listening?