We try to know what you know.

We watch Tom Hanks carry a rifle around sandbag barracks and Ben Affleck fly fighter jets with accuracy and passion. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. And we’re a little scared to think about it.  

What wet in the boots feels like as you lace them.
How lonely it is in the cold, lonely night of a different country with different smells and unfamiliar languages.
What you feel when you see the friend that is “closer than a brother” get hurt, or worse.
What it means to you to pin emblems on your chest, eat food you don’t like, live with a gun and a crew cut, wipe the tears of scared foreigners, and hold the word “freedom” as close to your heart as the picture of your loved ones at home.
The way you come back and nothing is the same, and you don’t know yourself in civility, and you can’t sleep without a knife under your pillow. 
How it is to experience the pride that you are part of squelching evil in the world and protecting us back here.

We know we can carry Bibles and rainbow stickers.
We know we can attend church, overstuff our grocery carts, walk down sidewalks at noon or jump in a leaf pile.
We know we can start businesses, shoot fireworks, plant gardens, drink beer, and say “Amen.”
We know the kind of worry that draws us to our knees for you while you’re gone.
We know the same, deep ache you feel while we’re apart.
We know greater good that’s at stake if you don’t go.

And all we can say is thank you. From the bottom of our self-indulgent latte cups, thank you.