Why Serve?

A lot has changed in the last couple years. I stepped out of ministry and got a normal job as a Machinist. Then I did something some people have been confused by, I joined the Washington National Guard. Since then I've had a lot of people ask me "why". To most people it probably seemed like it came out of left field. I've worn a suit and tie so long most people who know me don't know where I come from. That's intentional.

I've always liked to see how people perceive me without volunteering much background. I like to surprise people, to take them off guard. You get a raw and uncompromising understanding of their values, of their opinions. I hate when people cater their speech or their opinions based off of how they think I think. I find it dishonest, which is funny. Because I do the same thing. Perhaps that's why I allow the misconception. I digress...

The truth is, I've always wanted to join the military. Since I was five years old. I remember staring at the wall in our living room where my father hung the old photographs of himself and my grand father in uniform. I didn't much understand what that uniform meant but I did understand the respect it demanded. Not for the men wearing it, but the cost it signified. Buried under the foul mouths and the disreputable facade of a soldier has always and will always bear with it a deep sacrifice and unassailable honor.

It's unpopular today to "hero worship" soldiers. We have steadily suffocated the once proud warrior culture that our ancestors painstakingly cultivated for centuries. Intentionally. Deliberately. Warriors produce war. War kills. We've had enough of death. After World War II, Korea and Vietnam, it became unpopular to encourage warriors. I don't think there was malice towards the individuals. It was the Hell that followed them. Maybe this conversation is too much for the short paragraphs I've laid out here but its important to understand where I'm coming from. I didn't join the military because I want to go to war. I didn't join the military because I want to kill. I didn't join the military because I want to die. I joined because I have understood instinctively since the day I saw my father disarm a man with a pistol pointed at his head, that the only want to stop war is for good men to become experts in violence.

The truth is, I've always believed I was able and willing to endure things others either could or would not. Until this last year I've had good reason to refrain from signing that dotted line. However, it has been a weight I have carried the entirety of those last ten years. I carried it because I submitted my life to God, fully. I leaned in and asked Him to remake me into something new, and when the rot had been chipped away and new life began to root itself in my heart, I slowly felt a release.

If I'm being honest I felt like a racehorse waiting for the gate to drop. Now that it has, it's been tough. I've had to run harder than I thought I would and I'm only just starting out but it feels natural. Like breathing. To my great surprise my body and my mind have adjusted for the strain. Yes, I've been humbled by my weakness. I'm not the fastest or the strongest horse in the race, and I might be a little older too. But I'm eager and I'm hopeful. This is just another segment in a long run leading me back home. I hope that as I go I am able to measure up to something close to what those who have gone before me.

In the meantime I am honored to (temporarily) wear the same patch my father wore in Korea.