A Walk In My Boots -- Part IV

By Michael L. Craner

A Walk In My Boots – Part IV

This is part 4, despite the lack of Part 3 mostly because Part 3 is largely uninteresting to anyone else but me, but maybe I'll write that down someday anyway. Part 4 probably is too, but I’m writing it anyway so you’ll have to suffer through it or ignore it. Regardless… we do what we must to make ourselves happy.

My earlier years still haunt me, not like a bad choice or investment, but just the path I walked before is still in the news but others are playing my role.

The day I flew out of Incirlik Turkey, coming up out of Iraq, I looked around and thought to myself that it would not be the last time I saw that place. I was right, and wrong. For me, the mission was over. For my country, it was only beginning… Perhaps even my own sons will walk up and down the same streets I once did, continuing the missions I began.

Today I want nothing more than world peace and acceptance, although I know it will probably never be. At least one of my sons wants to follow my footsteps so badly it scares me. But the job must be done, and it must be done by someone. If my boys want to serve their country and do their duty, I’m not one to stand in their way. I can only hope and pray like my parents before me that they don’t have to pay the ultimate price… or give so much of themselves that they will never recover.

Obviously I didn’t give it all… but I gave enough that I will never be the same, and I’ve enough friends that came back as shells of themselves that I know that death would be merciful in comparison to what they have been reduced to. Fortunately, the changes in me for the most part have made me more appreciative of life and made me focus more on trying to understand why people do what they do. There have been issues to deal with, but ultimately I think I was able to turn it into a growth process.

We can “Support Our Troops” to the end, but in the end, they walk the trail alone, and they must find their way back alone or become statistics along the way.

I’ve been there and I’m still not all the way back home despite how hard I’ve tried. I settled down, got married, and had four kids… I hold down a decent job, I help out with the local Boy Scout troop and I see my son and the other boys, a breath away from where I was at eighteen. I am so proud, so sad, and so scared for them. In a few short years, they will be offered an enlistment… and their choice will change their lives forever regardless of which path they choose.

Young men will follow their hearts, and there is nothing anyone can do about that except love them regardless. We do what we can to prepare them for life ahead of them. Boys in Scouting will have a heads-up on others… Learning about honor, loyalty, and survival skills. Military history is filled with stories of former scouts who have overcome obstacles because of their scouting experiences.

Yet there is no training or experience we can give them that will help them come home when they have crossed that border where it is their life, or that of another. The military family helps a lot to stabilize and support them when they are “active duty”, but so many are National Guard or Reservists and when their tour is up they come right back home to civilian life, and are essentially cut off from the active duty military family support group, left to fend for themselves in a group that has no comprehension of what they have been through… also known as “civilians”.

Even if they aren’t part-time soldiers, but full-timers, there is still little consolation. To those who “have been there” there is a lot of denial, and those who just seem to have dealt with the situation better. Then there are those active duty folks who never seem to deploy that are there when we got home that seem to think everything is normal. We can’t talk to them. They simply wouldn’t understand.

No one really does. Except those who have been there. And they really can’t help either, because the trauma affects us all differently. The most they can do is understand to some degree, truly understand, and we don’t talk about it.

The days are growing shorter… I am walking less in my boots, and my sons are growing into them. They are beginning to shoulder loads that I once carried, and I must watch them disappear into the sunset, “Always Forward”, “Semper Fi”, and all that stuff.

The biggest problem that I face now, is that they must walk in my boots, because the job wasn’t finished, and politics haven’t made combat boots any less fashionable. Now I’m at point where I can’t march with my sons, but maybe, just maybe I can do something so they won’t have to march too much.

I once fought in fatigues and combat boots. Now I fight with my mind and words and vote. I can still make a difference, I can still protect them. God willing, maybe I can even change their shoes.

But if not, I can still teach them how to spit-shine their boots, polish their brass, and shoot straight.