Longtime readers of JCI will remember the short essay by Jordan Blashek, "The Making of a Marine," published here in 2010, five months into his four-year service commitment. The post received more comments, most of them from military personnel, than any other post in JCI's history.
Bari Weiss has just published Blashek's powerful essay, "Did My Fellow Soldiers Die in Vain?", in the wake of the loss of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Here is the beginning of the essay:
The other night, a friend texted to see how I was doing. We don’t know each other that well, but we had both served overseas in Afghanistan. We were sad — sad in a way that makes it hard to move. We felt the same way in 2014 when Fallujah fell to ISIS. That was painful too, but it taught us how to move forward. We learned that it’s just a matter of time before the stunned feeling washes away.
But then my friend sent another message. His first cousin Mike, a Marine lieutenant, had been killed in Afghanistan in 2009, and now Mike’s mother was devastated all over again. The past 72 hours had raised all those painful questions: What was it for? Did he die for nothing?
I broke down. I went into the shower and sobbed.
I’m not here to offer any political opinions or policy recommendations. There are enough of those flying around in the wake of the Taliban’s capture of Kabul, and they won’t change the conditions on the ground. They won’t help the tens of thousands of Americans and Afghan allies trapped there, hiding with their families or begging to be let into the airport.
But I do want to write to Mike’s mom, a Gold Star Mother watching all of this and wondering if her child died in vain. I want her to know what her son’s life meant to me. I want her to know what it was all for.
Both essays are worth reading today.
Comments