For memorian day: Beneath Freedom's Skies

Beneath Freedom's Skies by longhair

It takes more courage to leave the ones you love again then to face what lies ahead in strange lands. You receive the call, the bags that stayed packed in a closet out of sight but never out of mind are now retrieved. They have become much heavier than before. You hold your children close, and tell them the words that matter. You look them in the eyes, and try not to leave them with lies, but make a promise to come home soon. A word with no concept of time when lives are lost in every moment measured in between the rapid pulse of your heart and the sound of another gun. You wonder if the promise made will be yours to keep in the dark watching tracers light up the sky. Your little ones ask you, "Why are you going again daddy?" Because they need my help. "But you just got back daddy?" Then you tell them again the words that matter. You remember your strength, the faces of home standing beside you, each with a promise to keep of their own to return to someone, somewhere- lives suspended in the waiting. When it's your time to pass through the fire not knowing where you will find yourself, you begin to understand that 'they' are why you are here. By returning, someone else goes home, while you fight for your brothers and sisters who fight for you, and for every promise that was made to someone, somewhere- waiting beneath freedom's skies, for a soldier to come home.