How to Treat a Hero...

The other day, a Canadian soldier came home from Afghanistan. This is a guy who joined the Armed Forces of his own free will as a volunteer so he could go to Afghanistan to help the people there rebuild a country that has been devastated by years and years of war. 

If you have any illusions about how much that country has been damaged, do a Google search on Kabul, the capital. In the 1960s, it was a beautiful, modern city. Now, Kabul, like most of the country, lies in ruins. (See http://www.afghan-network.net/Photography/kabul/ )   

The Canadian soldier I'm talking about went to that country to try to help the people rebuild and live in peace. It's such a mess there that school children take their lives in their hands just by going to school (the Taliban do not like education and are especially opposed to females getting an education of any kind.) 

Kids in many areas go to schools that are only partially destroyed, but have to put up with no heat, no electricity, and no place to plug in computers - something that we take for granted here in North America. 

 After facing the enemy, both visible and invisible, for long months during his tour of duty, this brave soldier came home to his home town, still in good shape, having been one of the favoured ones who wasn't shot up or blown up in an ambush. 

He went to a local pub to see his friends, was hailed as a hero when he walked in the doors, and then was severely beaten by some low-life jerk who hasn't got the guts to do what this soldier has already done, and ended up in the hospital with head injuries, broken teeth and a lot of bruises. Fortunately, he's out of the hospital now, and recovering nicely. 

What's the matter with our world? What's the matter with Canada and the US, that we would treat our soldiers so badly when they come home? People in both countries are screaming at our leaders to bring our soldiers home, treat our soldiers like garbage, and don't really give a blip about the suffering thousands and millions in those faraway countries. 

Oh, they'll tell you they do. They'll say it's all about oil, and if our leaders would just stay out of it and bring our soldiers home, all the troubles would be over. 

Bull..... The people in Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other countries don't have the luxury of even knowing if the lights are going to be on when they wake up. The enemy, be it the Taliban, el Queda, or whoever, do not understand the concept of passivism. To them, those who will not fight are weak, and deserve to be conquered, molested at will, and killed for sport. 

 Anyone who thinks otherwise has not paid any attention to the news and photographs from the last 40 years, and certainly has NO understanding of history from that part of the world. Peace has been an extremely rare commodity over there, and has only been possible when very strong leaders have been there who are backed by other very strong countries (like the US and NATO forces).  

Our soldiers who are fighting in these "far-off" lands are heroes and deserve to be treated as such. What they are doing "over there" is not simply "interfering" in someone else's business, but it is a huge humanitarian challenge and ultimately, is protecting our own freedom over here. 

Those who spit on our returning soldiers or worse are the first ones who would start screaming for the soldiers to protect them if the battles came over here. My personal feelings would be to send them out first to try to make peace. Then, when the pile of bodies gets high enough, the rest of us would have a place to lay our rifles when we start to shoot. 

Call me callous. Call me mean. Heck, call me a warmonger! I don't care. I call myself a realist, and have studied history and modern history far more than the average head up the tail ignoramuses that march in peace parades, and I think I know which end is really up. 

I don't like or support war, but when the war comes, I know that doing nothing is the best way to get shot. I applaud our brave soldiers and give them all the support I can. We should support our soldiers and we should welcome them home as heroes. 

We should also pray for an end to violence and for peace in the hearts of men. Peace doesn't come from parades. It comes in hearts, one at a time, from above.