Sees hope for nation manifested in its soldiers

Stanley Drwal

Guest Column

Over the years, I have watched with a sense of despair and disappointment as this great nation strayed from the traditional moral and civil codes that have made it great. I found myself often wondering if we could continue to survive as the great "shining city upon a hill" as Ronald Reagan often stated.

It appeared to me that the law-abiding taxpayer and citizen no longer counted for anything other than to serve as the cash cow for a socialist experiment gone wrong. The criminal became more valued than the victim; the illegal alien accrued more benefits than the citizen. Public service had taken on the meaning of helping yourself. In particular, I worried about our youth, steeped in the greed, selfishness, vulgarity and lack of responsibility plied by the mass media and our so-called elite of the entertainment and sports worlds.

With these thoughts, I spent this past week at Fort Bragg, N.C. There I had the wonderful opportunity of spending time with scores of Americans, mostly young, but also (surprisingly) many older, men and women preparing for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

It was a series of inspiring and often heartbreaking stories. Many were wearing the Combat Infantry Badge, Close Combat Badge, Purple Heart and Combat Patch of our most storied combat divisions, signifying time already served in combat. Some were volunteers, others were reservists called to active duty, but many were also involuntary recalls who had already honorably served multiple tours and had been discharged to begin new lives as civilians. But to the general public and especially to our elite untouched by the war, they are simply soldiers.

They lived busy lives away from home, training and living under conditions that would be grounds for a lawsuit had they been prisoners. But for them there would be no community activists to demand better conditions. They are simply soldiers.

The wounded returned to struggle back to health, many clamoring to stay in uniform while others, unable to, struggled for the meager benefits offered them by a grateful nation. But there would be no pro bono lawyers to help them. They are simply soldiers.

They worked and trained together as a team. Despite their differences, they had one goal I heard stated throughout my time there: to go overseas as a team, do their job and come back together. They did not gripe and complain much about their lot. They are simply soldiers.

Sadly, some will come back to be buried in American soil. We will never know if they would have become doctors, or builders, or famous scientists or just a good neighbor. All we will know of them is that they died as a soldier, an American soldier.

I left Fort Bragg knowing that there still is hope for this nation. I saw that hope in those soldiers. God bless them all.

Stanley Drwal is a Sayreville resident and member of the Borough Council