Maybe a 'Thank You' is in order...

  • Published
  • By Geoff Janes
  • 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFPN) --  Have you ever watched someone right before he or she cries? It's a very humbling experience.

Picture Staff Sgt. So-and-So getting off the refueling plane at his home station. He puts his right foot on the flight line and looks around for his family or friends. It has only been 45 days, but it feels like an eternity.

In the waiting crowd, there she stands -- all 39 inches of her -- smile wide as the Nile, flag in her hand. "Daddy!!!" she cries.

He drops his bags, leans down and swoops her up like a stack of money. But her grasping little arms around his neck are worth more than any paycheck, more than any 5,000 square-foot house, Jaguar, Mercedes, Ping golf clubs, CDs, whatever.

"I'm home," he whispers softly in his wife's ear before looking skyward to his God. It feels so good to know someone was waiting.

The commander, or vice commander steps up, shakes his hand. It matters.

"What I've been doing matters," he thinks.

Back at his home-station job, he left work early today. He has cooked dinner, and only wants to make his wife smile.

At another time, someplace else, a female warrior straightens the collar on her uniform as she steps off the surveillance plane. She stands proud. She didn't have to worry about anything. He had it covered.

In the crowd her son holds a piece of poster board that he and daddy have written "Welcome Home Mommy" in black magic marker. Her little angel has cut out pictures from his favorite comic book and pasted them to the poster. Everyone needs a hero.

Blue, brown, green and hazel eyes, they all well up like someone has turned on a faucet.

The eye brims, it leaks, it breaks the dam of an eyelid and streams down a face covered with sadness and happiness mixed with uncertainty.

They are home, and all you can do is watch, watch and pray for good things. Pray for happiness, pray for peace, pray for all of them.

And as you watch the homecoming, you think, "If you haven't thanked a military member lately, you should."

They are out there facing the mortars, listening to the snap of rounds firing above their heads, not to mention those who hear the snap that slams into their chests, arms, legs... Even so, there are some who move out sharply while a voice in the back of their head asks, "Was it worth the money for college?"

All the while, you're in your colonial, Cape Cod or ranch style house, watching it all on CNN. You might be watching it all from the warmth and safety of your living room.

You might be numb; but still, your next door neighbor's son came home in a box today. Your cousin's daughter won't be finishing college. She died in the heat of battle last week.

I remember being on the Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind., burial team during my time in the Army. I remember saluting the dead. I remember carrying a coffin to a hole in the ground and thanking God it wasn't me.

And I remember the tears, tears that could humble even a saint.

Maybe I'll go tell my neighbor, with his Air Force flag and his starched uniform, how much I appreciate what he's been doing for my country.

Maybe we'll talk politics or religion, maybe we'll talk about fishing, or how good it feels to be helping a country that needs a hand. Maybe we'll smile and have a beer as we talk about how lucky we are to live in a free country.

And all the while, I'll know in my heart that it's all because of people just like my neighbor.

I think we all need to remember the fact that our friends and family members who wear the uniform press on with their duties regardless of the world situation. There are people joining the military heartily despite the fact that there's a war going on.

Other countries in the world have had their armies disintegrate because of casualties. Their people were not dedicated to the cause they served. That is what separates them from the mightiest nation on earth, the United States of America.

Just as with POW/MIA Day, we must always remember. So the next time you see someone in a military uniform, take two seconds out of your day to say thanks.