Pamy's Place: Warriors Of Freedom
...These are our warriors of freedom who have served our country well and have enabled us to have the freedom that we enjoy today. We need to do all that we can to honor them and to help them in any way that we can, especially those who display symptoms of post-traumatic stress. We want to show them in every way possible that we care...
Pamy Blaine honors those who put their lives at risk to protect and preserve freedom and democracy.
For more of Pamy's moving coloumns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/pamys_place/
I have a friend in New Mexico by the name of De’on Miller.
She spends much of her time doing what she can to help others and especially those in the military and our veterans.
De’on often writes to me about ways to help our warriors of freedom but this time she wrote about something that was especially disturbing to her as it is to me.
She had read an article by an Associated Press reporter which said the National Suicide Prevention Hotline took 22,000 calls from veterans in their first year of setting up a new system. The VA estimates that every year 6,500 veterans take their own lives.
These are our warriors of freedom who have served our country well and have enabled us to have the freedom that we enjoy today. We need to do all that we can to honor them and to help them in any way that we can, especially those who display symptoms of post-traumatic stress. We want to show them in every way possible that we care.
De’on has even more reason to care because she is a *Gold Star Mother and her own son, Aaron C. Austin, was killed in action in Iraq on April 26, 2004. She gave me permission to use her letter that she wrote to her son on a Memorial Day after he was killed:
May 29, 2006
Dear Aaron,
Thank you for your sacrifice, my son. Everyone in our country, as well as other countries, owes you and those like you such an enormous amount of gratitude. Some don't realize it at all, and others can only speculate, but spending five days in our nation's capital, admiring the portraits and statues of those who went before you and stood for freedom as well, and not once was the cost small. Korea, 54, 000 names, Vietnam, 50, 000. I saw the white crosses of soldiers and infants killed in the Civil War. Then there were presidents such as Lincoln and Kennedy, who were slain in their prime, as well as other bodies, unknown and unidentified. Blood, tears, blood, tears, over and over again.
I saw the haunting portraits of the Holocaust. I saw the young Jewish boys in the museum with their heads covered by the fabric of their faith. America, at first hesitant to get involved, did involve themselves in Hitler's country and affairs. Thank God we went to save the few, fight for their inch of freedom, and discover the atrocities of somebody else’s business. We nosed into a terrorist business and put those on trial for their horrible crimes against the persecuted.
So many cultures filled D.C. to visit the memorials of all that has been given to us to enable us to walk in the land of the free. Koreans, Pakistanis, Panamanians, nearly every race in our free world walked those avenues, snapped digital photos of the cost of freedom, and enjoyed the benefit of it all. During those solemn moments, some of them stood still a moment and hopefully they were reflecting on something about this country that was different and they were thankful for it. I hope that they, with me, were not able to find a precious moment in our history to stop and say, “There, there. This is where we should have stopped fighting for our freedom as well as the freedom of those we do not even know. Here is the point where we should have stopped caring for humanity and shouted at Washington, no more...we've had enough.”
No, there was no point in the tours that I thought to myself, “I don't care about your sacrifice and all that you did for all of us, I just care about me. Forget about the future generations.”
No, I thought none of these things. In awe, I was thankful and I wanted every tourist there, every free South Korean, every free Panamanian and Pakistani, and especially every American there in D.C. and Virginia to know that, MY son has joined those who stood for something.
Thank you, Aaron. From the bottom of my heart, on this third Memorial Day without your laughter to fill our homes, I hear it in the wind chimes and in the birds’ songs. I find it on the streets before my home as young men race in their cars down the street, play their music loud and free, and I look at those kids and I think, “You don't know how fortunate you are that so many people cared enough about you to die for you”. And then I think that in a way, that too, is a great thing…that so many of us have always lived in freedom.
I will never quit loving you and missing you, Aaron. I will always be proud of you.
Semper Fi,
Marine,"Mom"
(De'on Miller, Mother of Aaron C. Austin KIA, April 26, 2004)
A NOTE TO VETERANS FROM DE’ON:
I LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANY PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD. YOUR SACRIFICE IS FOREVER. THAT IS THE TRUE AND UNSELFISH SACRIFICE.
AND WE STILL NEED YOU. MORE THAN EVER—WE NEED YOU. HANG ON! YOU ARE WORTH SO MUCH—MAYBE YOU ARE THE LIFELINE FOR ONE OTHER - ONE OTHER GENERATION, ONE OTHER SOUL IN TORMENT, ONE OTHER BROTHER!
Much love,
Aaron’s Mom
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours a day by calling 800-273-TALK (8255); veterans should press "1" after being connected.
On the Net: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
(Researchers have found that male veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide as men who are not veterans. The good news is that 1,221 suicides have been averted since this new system was put into place. Trained counselors are available, one third of which are veterans themselves.)
“It takes the courage and strength of a warrior to ask for help."
*American Gold Star Mothers is an organization of mothers who have lost a son or daughter in the service of our country. This organization began shortly after WW1 and they hold a congressional charter. On the last Sunday in September, Gold Star Mother's Day is observed in the U.S. in their honor.
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Pamela lives in Missouri and writes "Pam's Corner" for her local newspaper. Many stories have been published in magazines, newspapers, and books. She is church pianist and has a CD of songs she has written. Her goal is to write to encourage and to preserve family history for her children.
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http://www.blaines.us/PamyPlace.htm
e-mail: pamyblaine@blaines.us
"Security is not the absence of danger,
but the presence of God"
"NO ONE IS USELESS IN THIS WORLD
WHO LIGHTENS THE BURDEN OF ANYONE ELSE"
(Charles Dickens)
