Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(96)
After a moment, the general and I stood up and took a few steps back so there’d be space in front of the casket. One by one, the soldiers came on board the plane, each paying respects to this fallen brother. I choked back tears and thought of the hundreds if not thousands of families I have met over the years who have lost loved ones in military service, Gold Star families as they are known, and how hard it must have been for them when the Angel Flight arrived home. I pictured the casket being brought down the ramp as the dignified transfer took place. I felt so sad and sorry for these families. Far too many of them.
That moment is why I do what I do.
My mission is one of respect, of honor, of gratitude.
It’s a mission of serving other people.
Of helping us never forget.
It’s a mission I want to invite all American people to join. In fact, I invite all people from all countries who live their lives in freedom. We must ensure the sacrifices of freedom’s defenders and their families are never forgotten. We must value freedom over tyranny, embrace the opportunities that freedom affords us, and support and remember those who provide it.
Today there’s an organization called TAPS—Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors—led by veteran Bonnie Carroll, the surviving spouse of Brigadier General Tom Carroll, who was killed in 1992 in a plane crash in Alaska along with seven other service members. Since 1994, TAPS has offered compassionate care to all those grieving the loss of a military loved one, and has helped more than eighty thousand military family members suffering and struggling with this terrible loss. TAPS supports mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, spouses and children. Military personnel can be lost through combat, in training accidents, from illness or suicide. The TAPS staff and volunteers don’t differentiate how a military member dies. In March of 2018 I was privileged to receive their Guardian Angel Award for my support of their critically important work. I accepted the award by saying, in part, “I just hope that I can be a good steward of the freedom that has been provided to me, and all my fellow Americans, because of the sacrifices of so many guardian angels. It is my wish to do that for the rest of my life.”
As I said those words, I remembered being on the tarmac in Afghanistan in 2009. I saw again Matthew Pucino’s flag-draped coffin. I thought of the many warriors who have given their last full measure just like Matthew, and I thought, God bless them and their families always.
When I look at photographs of my trips, I often wonder about the men and women in those photographs. Did they make it back alive? Were they wounded? Over the years, more often than I can count, I have had a family member come up to me with a photo I took with their loved one in the war zone. Sometimes a final photo, as that person was killed shortly afterward. I made it a practice, when taking these photos, one after another and spending maybe only twenty or thirty seconds with each person, to try to make those seconds count. We are in a war zone, and anything can happen to these folks at any moment. After my 2017 trip to Baghdad, I received a very sad email from a friend informing me that a young woman, a soldier in a photo with me, had taken her own life shortly after that photo was taken. She was smiling and happy in the photo. You just don’t know what is really going on sometimes.
After spending so much time with the grieving families of our fallen heroes, over and over I’ve been reminded that life can end at any time; that’s why we all need to make the most of each day. We need to make each day purposeful, and for the past several years I’ve discovered that much of that purpose for me is in serving and honoring the needs of our defenders. That’s why I’m still on a mission, a mission that’s the driving reason I’ve told my story. All my experiences—the places I came from, my years of formation, the people I met along the way, the mistakes I made and learned from, the challenges of my career and the ways I overcame—all my life has culminated in my ongoing service work.
There is an unfortunate disconnect between most Americans and our military. Unless we have a family member or close friend who is serving, most of us go about our daily lives with little understanding of who is actually defending us. The majority of Americans will never have a chance to see what our military does on a daily basis. Our service members are exceptional in so many ways. And not just at fighting our wars. When disasters such as hurricanes, fires, floods, and earthquakes strike, our carriers, helicopters, and hospital ships (floating medical treatment facilities) offer aid and support in countless ways to nations far and wide. Our military and first responders go into harm’s way in service to others over and over again. I want to know what they do, how they do it, and why they do it, and they have allowed me some special privileges over the years as I have visited them around the world. Our amazing pilots have taken me to seventy-two thousand feet in a U-2 spy plane over northern California, and pushed my body to 7 Gs in an F-16 in Aviano, Italy. I have landed in a C-2 Greyhound on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Persian Gulf, and in the cockpit of an F-18 Super Hornet onto the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt off the coast of San Diego. I’ve experienced training with US Army Special Forces in Germany and have witnessed firsthand how Navy SEALs complete BUD/S class and Hell Week on Coronado Island. I have seen American sons and daughters wearing the cloth of this nation as they serve in war zones. Year after year I have walked the halls of our military hospitals and witnessed our wounded as they face their challenges with great strength and courage, supported by the selfless caregivers who stand by day after day, month after month, year after year, helping them through. And I have seen the extraordinary care with which the members of the military and first responder communities honor their fallen brothers and sisters. Each time I have been allowed the privilege of participating in these types of experiences, it has helped me to become a more educated advocate, as I try to help bridge that disconnect. If only all of our fellow citizens could get to know them as I have, the difficult issues and challenges our veterans face would be greatly reduced as more of us would be inspired to take up the charge to support them. As a public figure, I am grateful that I have been able to use my platform to pass on what I have learned about who our military is, how skilled they are, and how fortunate we all are to have men and women like these serving our country.