I Never Cry

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We Remember. (Photo Credit)

This is continuation of my Stream of Consciousness post from yesterday, so the first part will be a bit of a repeat...this is raw, unedited writing.
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I never cry.

But I did today. I did 10 years ago.

Movies, Hallmark cards...the normally teary stuff...it just doesn't get to me. I might feel warm and fuzzy or sad, but rarely is it expressed through tears. Even pregnant I wasn't really a crier.

But my country. My country being attacked. Death. I cry.

Ten years ago the Persian Gulf War came here. Not literally, but I was an Air Force Brat. I was 6 years old when the first gulf war ended. At five and six years old I watched my dad get on airplanes, and knew he might not come home. I proudly wore my t-shirt "My Daddy Saved Kuwait!" I wore my yellow ribbon. I watched my friends dads' come home, while my dad was one of the first on the ground in Saudi Arabia and one of the last to leave to come home. But he did come home.

Then, ten years ago, everything he worked so hard to keep over there, made it here.

I did a research paper in college on military brats (if I can find my sources I'll post them). There have been studies done on military children. On their perception of security and disasters. They've been compared to children of civilians. What was found was that military brats have a more realistic perception of the security of the nation.

Civilian kids were found to believe that the USA is invincible. Nothing could touch us. Even after September 11, 2001 civilian children were more likely to believe that it was a fluke, that nothing like that could or would happen again.

To military brats (a name I wear with pride) it was our worst nightmare. We knew it could happen and we knew it could happen again. We thought of other places, Air Force Bases, Naval Stations, Army Posts, reasons why our family would be at risk, what the place we most recently called home would have that would make it a target.

Mine was Kennedy Space Center. Surely that stood for enough of America to make it and my family a target. And I knew it could happen. We all knew it could happen.

It could still happen. And that's why we hope, we pray, and we entrust the safety of our country and our way of life to our military, Air Force, Navy, Army, Marine, Coast Guard...all of them. Because they're the ones who will show the world, that we took a hit, but we're not going to just sit back and let them keep coming. It could happen, but our boys and girls will do their best to make sure it won't happen today.

Feel free to share your thoughts, but please be respectful...