When I was in Iraq, I started writing under the general
title “Who Fights Our Wars?” when I wrote about the soldiers I served with.
At the end of June last year, I retired as a civilian. In May of this year or next year I will leave
the Army. When I leave the Army, there
will no longer be anyone in my life I am paid to hang around with. Everyone in my life will be a friend, a
family member, or someone I chose to associate with.
Which has led me to think about “Who are my people?” So in the same way I have been writing about soldiers
I served with, I will write about people with whom I share some activity, which
means we share time and space together.
Some of these people are or were soldiers. Some are not.
I decided to write about these people because one of the
reasons I had for going back in the Army at 54 years old was how much I missed
the deep connection I had with some of the people I served with on active duty
in the 1970s.
It turned out this ability to connect with people had to do
with the circumstances we were in. The
regular Army puts people close together for weeks and months on end. The National Guard brings people together for
just one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. When we trained for and deployed to Iraq and
really were jammed together, it should be no surprise to anyone that a 55-year-old
guy does not quite blend into a group of 20 year olds. Socially, I blended in like a Vegan at a Bull
Roast.
So I have been thinking a lot lately about who my people
are, what they do, what we do together.
In his book “The Four Loves” C.S. Lewis writes about
Friendship. The key moment in finding a
friend he says can be the moment of “You too?’
That moment in which we find someone else interested in something we thought
no one else loved the way we do.
So in addition to writing about the people who fight our current
wars, or were ready to fight the Soviet Union, I am also going to write about
people with whom I share one particular interest, even if the rest of our lives
are very different.
