Modern Day Heroes and the Contrast

In the midst of channel surfing to get away from the Disney Channel, I chanced upon a series of interviews on C-SPAN tonight. The interview I was watching was of Corporal Michael Oreskovic, who is a cavalry scout currently attached to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He was assigned to one of the line troops in the reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition squadron in the 1st Stryker brigade and had lost his left arm about midway at the upper arm. He had already been shot in the left arm once, and a few weeks later was on a mounted patrol before he was about to conduct transfer of authority with the replacement unit when he was hit again by a car bomb, badly enough where half of his arm was blown off in the blast.

What I found utterly awe-inspiring was CPL Oreskovic's, well, equanimity over his life. A 23 year old man, who joined the military out of patriotism, as a volunteer, was visibly at peace over having to wear a prosthetic arm for the rest of his life. He was very matter-of-fact about it, and exuded maturity far beyond his physical appearance.

The cliché that every "generation has its heroes" can sound trite at times. The men and women who are in theater, though, represent some of the best that the Nation has to offer.

In contrast, I see with my own eyes the insularity of some civilians, and think that it's a shame that the values that I see in the soldiers who fight and sometimes die for the things we have asked of them are not reflected in some of the people they defend. Those they defend pick through the food on a table only wanting to get their share, sleep late, and generally not thinking about the rest of the world around them.

"You've never lived until you've almost died. For those who fight for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know."

Perhaps I can be forgiven this little piece of catharsis, but I look back to the career choices I've made and realize that I have no regrets. I'm not particularly conservative relative to my peers in the Army, but it's an honorable profession, and I believe in what I do on a more fundamental level than just it being a paycheck.