Paris, War and the Military Spouse

Paris, War and the Military Spouse

Paris was attacked on Friday. This was big news. I found out on social media which is where I find out about most worldly events, I am not a big tv news watcher. I started seeing people posting photos of visits to Paris and that we should pray for them.  I didn’t really understand why until I saw what had happened.

Paris was attacked by terrorists. About 130 people were killed that night. Such a tragedy.

I have had a few days to think about all this. I have read a few blog posts about it and seen so many social media posts about it as well. Everyone seems to have an option about what happened, about how the US is acting, about what we should be doing to support Paris and about why we didn’t do anything about other attacks in the last week, attacks in places like Beirut, Syria and Kenya. There is a lot going on in this world right now.

Is it fair to blame people who are supporting Paris but were silent on the other places? I don’t know. I for one didn’t know much about them until after Paris happened. I will admit I probably did see news articles about those things happening. And I am sure my thought was, “That is so very sad, yet another tragedy in that part of the world.” I didn’t do much else. I didn’t share photos praying for those places, I didn’t change my Facebook profile to their flags. I just went along in my day.

Paris gets hit and it affects me differently. Paris is close to Germany, where we used to live. People in Paris are more like me then people in those other places. Still, I can’t help but feel guilty about not really acknowledging what is happening in other parts of the world. I think focusing on Paris makes sense because we feel like Paris is like us. We feel connections to Paris that we don’t to other places. Is this the way it should be? Probably not but it is what happens. If you tell me that your friend’s sister’s neighbor’s house burned down, I am going to feel sad about that. If you tell me someone in my neighborhood’s house burned down, it would affect me much more. I would look into more tangible ways of helping them. I would feel more connected to it. This is just reality.

So what can we learn from this? That maybe we should look at what is going on everywhere. We should be aware of the World, not just the Western part of it. All of it matters.

There is another part of what happened in Paris that worries me. War. More war. More fighting. More deployments. I don’t know of very many Military Spouses that heard about Paris and didn’t think about what it could mean for their own spouse. If feels like the wars we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are never going to end, regardless of what any politician says.

When you live in a community where people are still deploying, you know that things are not over, they are still happening and people are still going off to war.

I am not sure what the solution to ISIS is. It’s a scary thing to think that people would hate other people so much that they could go in and kill them. The thought of that makes me want to burst into tears. But what do we do about that? What should America do? Keep sending people to the same places over and over? Back in 2003 I thought that was the solution. That we should send our troops in to do what was needed. It is now the end of 2015 and I just don’t know anymore.

What can America do when we have been at war for so long? When the Military is tired?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I don’t know what would be right or moral or what should happen? I don’t know if what we are doing is going to help or make things worse. I have to trust in those that have the power to make those decisions but it is a difficult thing to do. Especially when my husband could be dirrectly affect by the choices those people make.

I know so many people who have been affected by war because I have been a Military Spouse for 10 years now. I know how some don’t come home and some come home broken. I see how marriages can break up and things are never the same after time over there.

I think of all of these things when I see that more war might be needed and all I can do is pray.

Pray for those areas, all of them, in Europe and Asia and the rest of the world. Pray for the innocent people who might die because of everything that is going on. Pray for the Military families that will see more war than any other generation. And hope that the US and our allies can make the right decisions that in the end will lead to a more peaceful world.