A Drop Of Sadness In A Sea of Happiness

By Semperpapa

Today was a great day.
In two days, my son and daughter-in-law will have the ceremony that they have been waiting for for two years.
Two years ago, they were united in matrimony by the justice of peace and postponed a celebration of the day by one year.
Last year, even as the preparations were ongoing, my son was deployed to Afghanistan with his Marine unit. And they had to postpone again.
A year ago this time, we were not much preoccupied by the inability of celebrating a wedding, but exclusively by the apprehension of having a husband, a son, a brother at war.

What a difference a year makes. Now the celebration is finally taking place as the couple is celebrating their second anniversary, and we are all swimming in a sea of happiness.

Tonight, we hosted a dinner after the wedding rehearsal , with the family of my daughter-in-law and the wedding party. Of the eight groomsmen on my son's side, five are from his Marine unit, brothers from the Corps.
In the sea of happiness I felt as I made a toast to the new couple and as I mentioned the reason for the delay for this great celebration, I also mentioned how happy I was that these young men had come home safe. And the same sadness I felt as I prepared my toast in the past few days, came back to me. I knew the thought of the seven Marines who did not get to come home to their families was going to cross every Marine's mind. Especially the thought of LCpl. Rick Centanni and Sgt. Maj. Robert Cottle, who were killed together in March 2010 by an IED and who had been good friends of the Marines I was speaking to.

War is an ugly business, not just for those who don't come home and their families, but also for those who come home after having witnessed the horrors of war. The sense of sadness, rage, guilt and so many more feelings these young men and women endure remains unfairly unknown to those like me, a civilian, who were lucky enough to never have to live through such an experience.

For such reason, it is my mission to make sure that the sacrifice our troops have made and continue to make on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan will never be forgotten, that the sacrifice of those who came before this generation will never be forgotten.

Sometime it takes a drop of sadness in a sea of happiness to make you realize how blessed we really are and how much we owe to our good Lord, and to our Military.

Just my thoughts!