A little bit of us dies each time.

Today marks 26 years since I came home from the first Gulf War. In many ways it seems like it was a lifetime ago. Heck, it feels like 3 lifetimes. The world has changed a lot in 26 years. Then, very few were protesting the war in Kuwait. Now, they are protesting democracy and free speech. It seems like the country was united then. Now we are divided with a civil war of conflicting ideologies. On one side we have those who work every day, they love their country and what it was founded on, and on the other side are those who want nothing more than to live free without consequence and feel safe to do anything they want.

I remember coming home, thinking everyone and everything would be the same. I was wrong. Things were different. Not in any major way, but in a way that was just significant enough that I had trouble reintegrating into life once I was back. I remember how angry I was that everyone had changed around me. My friends and family, my neighbors. The only people who didn't really change were my buddies.

Well, the truth is, I had it backwards. We were the ones who changed. The truth is, whenever you are in a high stress situation (like a war or something similar in its stress levels), a little bit of you dies there. You never come back the same because you really aren't you when you get back. My brothers who served after me and those who went before had it much worse. There are no safe places in trauma centers or during war. There are no safe places for first responders (fireman, cops and EMS).

Is it any wonder that so many who have served end up homeless or divorced? We live in a world where college kids need a safe space when the VP wants to come to their school and give a speech, they need safety pins to reassure them that their silly little ideas that their professors are feeding them are ok when they experience a conflicting worldview and they need to hug a puppy when the real world hits and they don't get a participation trophy for their candidate coming in 2nd place.

How does someone live and cope in a world so diametrically opposed to everything they left home for? Think about it. Our troops and soldiers and first responders are sacrificing their lives every day. They don't have the luxury of hugging a puppy when their sensibilities are offended. They aren't living in a world where a conflicting idea is presented in a classroom, it is presented on the street or battlefield where their lives are at risk. Conflicting ideas means death to those that serve. It means a gun fired at a cop or EMS worker, it means an IED or sniper fire for the soldier or sailor.

And I wonder... Everytime we see a tragedy on TV like a cop being gunned down, and innocent child caught in gangland crossfire, news about X number of soldiers dying in battle, does a little bit of us die each time? Are we so immune that our compassion has died?

I had a conversation with a Deacon in our old church. He once told me that there is no such thing as a "poor person" in America anymore. Only people who have done themselves harm. I won't tell you what my initial reaction was, but I remember restraining myself quite nicely and gritting my teeth to reply: "It must be nice to have always had enough to have never struggled in your life." Not directly related, but it illustrates my point. Are we so insulated that we've forgotten compassion? Have our ideologies become so ingrained that we cannot have civil discourse and are instead hell bent on a path to civil war? It's not a war progressives want. They don't want to piss off the vets, the first responders, the EMS, the people that have kept them safe and allowed them their (wrong and misguided) opinions.

I see what's coming and I don't think it is going to be pretty. I pray that our civil servants will respond and intervene before it comes to a head. I have had enough happen in my life that I look back and mourn the death of my own self, knowing that every time something happens that is major in my life, a little bit dies. I'm not the same dude I was 3 years ago, 10 years ago, 26 years ago. Every event has killed a little bit of me. I mourn the fact that so many of my friends are the same.