Embers Starting Wildfires

My brothers and sisters who served in Afghanistan I want to say this to you. I served in Iraq as infantry. You did your job with honor and loyalty to the mission. You freed a nation and for 2 decades you brought a taste of freedom to men, women, children. You gave little girls the right to go to school and flower into powerhouses. Because of you Afghanistan still has a woman mayor who is standing tall against the Taliban saying "Come and take it" with all the fire that you instilled in her.

SHE is your legacy. Her and others like her. That fire you lit will burn. A people once tasting freedom will remember it. It may be embers for a generation but it will remain on their tongue until they are ready to cast those chains off themselves. Politicians will always fail. Theirs. Ours. We did the mission. We bled, we fought. Some of us gave the last full measure.

We will honor them. We honor them because their fighting spirit is now in that dirt that has been the graveyard of empires. Empires yes but not of a Republic. Not of America. It now knows our fighting spirit and that blood will burn hot and only grows hotter with time. Maybe one day it will blossom into freedom and they will throw off the chains themselves. Maybe they will leave and carry that fight elsewhere to build shelters for refugees of wars.

You gave them a chance. You held the line, pushed back the darkness, and showed them the light. You fought the demons at the door and took the wounds for them. It is a deep pain to watch so much lost in so short of a time but the fire has been lit. It burns down low but it burns. 

Pray for those there. Pray for those who fight against that night and pray for those families who have sent and continue to send their warriors to the field of battle to fight for those who cannot or will not. We are the warriors. We do not fail. 

God bless you all my brothers and sisters and may the Lord keep those who are fleeing tonight. May those who were sent in, a scarce handful of warriors against a nation of insurgents, come home safely with their precious cargo.

Written by Jim Batchelor, U.S. Army (Ret.)