Memorial Day

I found myself cursing a mundane task today. I was in the laundry room after work, folding what felt like my 100th towel and I just said out loud, "I swear I spend my life in this damn laundry room!" I pressed my last item and began to strip off my sweat soaked uniform. 

Something bit my neck and I winced in pain. I looked down at the lapel of my dirty shirt and saw it, a tiny gold American flag pin dangling from the cuff. And then I felt it, a pang of guilt echoing through my brain knowing that I had no business complaining about the banality of my life. Today is Memorial Day, and so many veterans have died in order for me to even have the chance, no more, the privilege to complete the utmost routine tasks of my every day life. We are the fortunate ones that get used to taking everyday chores for granted. I am one of those people that chose to complain about it on Memorial Day. "Bitch." I said to myself.

I meant it. 

In my evening haze I forgot the reason I put the pin on my shirt in the first place. Memorial Day is the day we recognize all those brave men & women who died for our country. While we mostly think about those losses in the field of battle, I placed the pin on my lapel today for those veterans who died at their own hands. 

The fact is that we lose more veterans to suicide than fallen military in active duty. On average we lose 22+ veterans a day to suicide. That's roughly one an hour. (Tweet That.) Statistics show that the suicide rate for veterans is over 50% higher than civilians in their same demographic conditions. 

The LA Times explains, "Men accounted for 83% of the veterans in the study and all but 124 of the suicides. They were three times more likely than women to take their own lives. Female veterans, however, killed themselves at more than twice the rate of other women — a difference much bigger than the gap between male veterans and non-veterans."  (Read the full article here.)

In my tiny laundry room, I stripped my polo off my chest and the tiny gold pin scratched a thin line of blood on my neck. As I dabbed the trail of raised skin I thought long and hard of those veterans who found their lives all too overwhelming and perhaps found a soft place on their flesh to relieve their inner pain. 

Charles  Spurgeon once said, “The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.” (Tweet That.)

Alone in my laundry room I thought about the affliction so many veterans carry. How their war stressors echo so loudly in their minds until the crescendo plays double forte and they can't do anything more than find an infinite silence. 

And then I thought about their families. I wondered, does the mother of a soldier suffering from PTSD still get the folded flag handed to her when her son takes his own life? Does that mother's loss hurt any more or any less than the mother that loses her son from battle?

This Memorial Day please say a separate prayer for those soldiers continuing to replay the damages of war in their minds. Pray for those soldiers who can't grasp assimilation back into our world, those who can't even process the simple task of doing laundry because their very existence is too broken by experiences we can't even begin to process as reality.

Timothy 2:4 says, "No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him."

Today let's remember that all soldiers are aiming to please all of us at home, to protect us and honor us, whether they are pledging to serve complete strangers or their direct family. We have enlisted these soldiers, and it is our duty to bolster their minds and spirits when they return home. Otherwise we will continue to have "Memorial Days," rather than "Veterans' Days." 

Hebrews 2:10 says, "For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering."

Suffering is real

existence is constant

glory should be offered

 and salvation is earned by all of those veterans who suffered.