Pride in Serving Military
Compare the job of serving in the military to the regular day by day job of working in the office with briefcase and cellular phone heading meetings, but more likely listening to the boss, whilst sitting down by the desk and filing paper after paper trying not to yawn. In this scenario, there is the office gossip, the attempts not to yawn, the stress, and the doldrums, and over and again the knowledge (lurking at the back of one's mind that Businessman is constantly trying to suppress) that he is working for another, not for himself. Now compare that to jumping out of a plane; to landing in some new, foreign, interesting Argentinian or Afghanistan village; to striding down those streets with a gun knowing that one is protecting the people from harm and that one is protecting the world from tyrants such as Ibn Laden. Imagine being one of those soldiers who actually smashed down the door of Ibn Laden's haunt and managed to capture him... What a job!
Not only do I as military recruit save the world from tyrants and make it a better place for my generation and for future generations, therefore being amazingly altruistic and facing the prospect of being admired and venerated by towers, but I am also selfish in the process for I am enabling others to pay for my opportunity of traveling the world and for free education whilst seeing a never-ending ceaseless montage of stimulating sights. This helps my imagination, making me eternally fresh and innovative since, unlike Mr. Businessman who is constrained to his bureau day after day, I actually travel the world, may jump out of places -- fly one myself -- ride ships, - pilot them myself...
And serving inserts valuable traits such as selflessness, dedicating, self-discipline, self-control, courage, and the need to dedicate ourselves to something higher than us. This is powerful and can make of a puny human someone far greater. Soldiering is a life-changing profession. Rarely is there a profession that changes you as dramatically as the army does. Sarah Sandifer, spouse of a military recruit, describes this better than I can when she exclaims:
It expands your worldview, forges friendships, and instills pride. It develops compassion, patience, and grace. It cultivates selflessness when you help others, and gratitude when you receive help. It changes you. It matters.
Indeed, it does. And that's why I see pride in serving the military.
The term 'soldier' has a ringing tone to it. 'Soldier' was the stuff of nursery rhymes, fairy tales, classic novels, inspirational songs. 'Soldier' is the term denoting courage. We use it when talking about 'Christian soldiers' or 'soldiering on' and most kids remember wanting to read stories of soldiers, dreaming of joining the army, dressing up as a soldier, or- if they were girls -- planning to marry one when they would grow older. Still today, the word' soldier' has a certain ring to it and many may find it more dramatic and fascinating to speak to a solider than to hold conversation with a 'regular' businessman. 'Soldier' after all is infused through and through with connotations of…
