Soldiers thrive on our support

By the time this thought is published, we very likely will be at war.

I felt compelled to say something about all the adverse talk preceding the inevitable.

I am a United States military veteran. So are my husband, my father, my grandfather and both my brothers, as are other more distant family members.

I don’t want to go to war, but I do know some things are worth fighting for.

I was in the Air Force during the Gulf War, stationed at Aviano Airbase, Italy for four years. Aviano was a staging base for the war and within scud missile range. This was the last place many of the fighter pilots would go before flying their missions over Iraq and Kuwait.

We were on high alert for months at a time, we were hit with terrorist threats and actual attacks weekly. The training we did often became real life scenarios and we had to continually change our route of travel to avoid terrorist targeting. We were all focused on our duty and our mission there. If we had any idea of the lack of support on the homefront, it would have been hard to keep that focus.

While we didn’t end up in World War III, at the time no one knew it wouldn’t go that far. It changed the way a lot of us looked at our lives. We all thought seriously about our futures and knew life was too short to put things off.

One of the many things I learned from my experience is that I do trust our military. They are highly trained and there is no doubt in my mind there are a lot more reasons than most Americans know about to go forward in this fight sooner than later.

It breaks my heart to know how it feels to be in the middle of all of it and to know there are so many who don’t support their sacrifice, their job, their commitment.

I remember quite well the situation with Saddam Hussein and his negative nature. Today, 12 years later, it still hasn’t changed.

Even more time isn’t going to make that dictator have compassion for his people or ours.

Thanks to the sacrifices made by those serving today and those veterans who’ve gone before, I have the freedom to my own opinion. I will support our troops through thick and thin. I will show them honor and respect and embrace them, their families and our world leaders in my hearts and prayers.

Thank you to all who are currently serving and their families for their sacrifices and worries and thank you to those who have gone before and those who have lost their lives for what I know and love today as the United States of America.

Shannon Sessions is editor of the Lynnwood/Mountlake Terrace editions of The Enterprise.