I am grateful that we have citizens who are willing to risk their lives to defend those of myself, my neighbors and my children and serve a life dedicated to the military.
But I am proud that those same warriors are willing to put down their arms and hurry to help those who find themselves in the epicenter of natural disasters.
The Marines rolled into the Philippines last week in an attempt to bring what comfort and aid they could to the devastated area. If war is hell, I can only imagine the scene after the storm is the underworld’s ninth layer.
These men and women expect to see horrific scenes on the battlefield. In the Philippines those same types of scenes are being replayed but this time the victims won’t be enemy combatants. They are children, mothers, the elderly.
And this will stay with them, forever. It will haunt them. And yet, they will go. Every. Time.
Nonprofit organizations such as The Borgen Project are quick to point out that the U.S. is among the bottom five nations when it comes to assisting the globe’s needy populations. That organization’s latest numbers show that only 0.2 percent of America’s gross national income is spent on international aid, or roughly $30 billion a year. PBS reports say the most generous estimates show U.S. foreign aid amounts to 1 percent of the nation’s budget, and even then much of those dollars are spent on defense efforts in foreign countries.
In comparison the U.S. spent $159 billion in 2011 alone on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are discussions and arguments that are well above my paygrade, as my soldier husband often says.
Regardless of how much the politicians say we can spend, the boots on the ground that are passing out the supplies, carrying the sandbags and feeding the hungry are our husbands, brothers and sisters and mothers.
You can argue all day about how much the government should spend on these missions but the fact that we have citizens who leave their families for months and sometimes years at a time to fight our wars, and then leave again to help rebuild after these devastating events is nothing short of heroic.
It is easy for the rest of us to click on pictures of the mayhem, click our tongues and say, ‘oh, how horrible.’ But many of our men and women in uniform are there, stepping in and trying their best to help bring calm after the chaos.
They are what is good and right about our nation. They set a standard that the rest of us could only dream of following. For them, and their dedication, I say, thank you.
If you want to donate to the ongoing relief efforts below are some links to organizations raising money to help:
