Remembering

Most days I am so humbled by being here in Afghanistan, I see people working together from all over the United States and honestly the world.   On this post alone we have Bulgarians, Romanians, Canadians, French, Australian, Turkish, Georgian, and others that I know I am forgetting.  Although most do their own tasks and assignments we all work side by side and continue to show a unified front.  I am honored to be a part of it even a small part.

I am not here shaping laws or organizing local nationals, I am here to help the American Soldier when they are going through a rough time.  Sometimes that is honestly just an ear to listen to what is going on in their life and sometimes it is standing beside them right before they go to jail, being the last person who was there speaking on their behalf.  But it is a humbling experience to talk to someone who has been in the Army eight years and deployed 4 times, or has a 5 year old child and been deployed 3 years of the child’s life.  I remind myself of that when I am thinking how sad I am for what I am missing.  Because in the big scheme of things I’m not missing all that much, don’t get me wrong it is still difficult at times but man the sacrifices some of these people make for the Army, for the United States is great. 

It is also pretty cool to be over here and interact with all the different services.  The other night US was playing the French in woman’s soccer and a group of us were watching.  I sat down at a table in the square where they were showing the game and several French soldiers sat down in the same area.  It was a lot of fun to watch with them and realize that we aren’t so much different and so there is a language barrier there are a lot of things cross the cultural and language issues, sports is the big one.