Never ‘just’ anything

I was asked to make a video for a Church Service for Remembrance Day years ago, then in subsequent years for the community Remembrance Day Service.  And I did, I made what has turned into this video.

This video is mostly for me.

Every deployment the idea that if something happened to DH, all the world would see is that death photo that they take before they go (for those who don’t know that’s the picture in uniform of them in front of the flag.  I’m sure it has another name, but the only time you would see it is on the news, when they are killed.  So it’s always just struck me at the death photo).

When I look at my kids I see my youngest son who watched some collegues of DH bring a armoured vehicle to our church playschool, while his dad’s been gone a couple months now he is simply wanting desperately the attention of the men who look like dad because to him, in that uniform, they all do.  I see my daughter who proudly carried her first wreath at the school assembly for Remembrance Day with only the vaguest idea of what it meant.  And I see my oldest son, who decided to wear his dad’s spare dogtags to school today and told me he tried really hard not to let anyone see him cry during the tribute video at that same assembly.  When it comes to things like this they have to be a little braver than your average kid, but they each love their daddy for who he is at home, not what he does at work. 

DH is not just a uniform, though he is proud to wear it.  He’s not just a soldier, he’s a husband, father, brother and son. He’s an uncle, a friend, next year he’ll be a groomsman for the 3rd time.  He’s fluent in french, he can run a 4:23km and he taught his kids to ‘play the bagpipes’ by holding their nose and tapping their throat while humming.  He serves on our church board of elders, he is pretty good at beatboxing and he is ridiculously amused by Charlie the Unicorn.  He has a weird love of Van Morrison music.  He once spent his weekend home leading a Youth Camp where he woke the teens up at 3am for a hike in the woods and made them do PT before breakfast (…ok, maybe sometimes even when he’s not a soldier, he kinda still is one).

The point being that not one casualty of war was ever ‘just a soldier’.  When I started making this video the first time, DH was  on his 3rd tour in Afghanistan.  Sadly there are men shown here that were there with him.  Those men were not ‘just’ soldiers.  Making this video was part of my coping process and the fact was able to be used for others to see was just a bonus.

Thinking now about the fact that  most of my readers are American, I think this video is still a perfect example about what every soldier has in common.  They are never ‘just’ anything.  There is someone, somewhere that is missing the things that soldier did when he wasn’t being ‘just’ a soldier.  No matter which country he was from.

As I mentioned in the info of the video, this is made sometimes with info given to me by family and friends of these soldiers, but mostly from the Internet.  If you notice an error or omission, please let me know.

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