A SOLDIER'S STORY

The Beginning

By
Franke Gracia

When I was young, my mother taught me to play fair. I was punished and chastised for not being fair. As I grew older, it became abundantly clear that life is not fair. Never has been. Never will be. I was a young man before I finally came to the understanding that, while my mother’s motives may have been altruistic, she lied to me when she said things were fair.

Ever since 9/11, I have been trying everything I could to get back into a military uniform – with no success. Finally, after unbelievably frustrating battles with the beast that is the military bureaucracy, the letter I had been waiting for at long last arrived, and I was assigned to a unit with the Texas Army National Guard. Almost immediately, I began to hear rumors of an imminent mission overseas. When the alert order finally came, Uncle Sam sent me to the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, for an intense study of Afghanistan.

It was there that I was given an information overload by university professors, state department officials, and military officers on the history, economics, culture, customs, and religion of Afghanistan. I learned about Tajiks, Hazaras, and Pashtuns; about Afghans twice driving the British from their country and, most recently, sending the mighty Russian Bear home whimpering. I studied the tribal culture that drives the country and the Muslim religion that is ingrained in the population. I learned the sad, sad account of the past quarter-century of Afghanistan history. Studying Afghanistan once again revalidated for me the fact that life is not fair.

In a book that I read as part of my country study, there was a quote I won’t soon forget: “There are many children in Afghanistan, but very few childhoods.” Twenty-five percent of all Afghan children never reach the age of 5. The country, because of 25 years of constant warfare, is littered with literally millions of unexploded land mines (no, “millions” is not a typo).

Since medical care is all but nonexistent, about one in 200 women die during childbirth. Life expectancy is the mid 40s. The ambitious goal of the country’s leadership is to get most Afghans out of abject poverty and into “dignified” poverty – dignified being defined as earning $500 per year. One-third of the population of Afghanistan is displaced.

My neighbor recently confided in me that she couldn’t understand why I had been trying so hard to get back into the military. Well, it’s because life is not fair. It’s because I won the lottery the day I was born. For reasons I will never understand, because life is not fair, I was born in America. I was born in a country where my illiterate grandfather was given a chance to pursue his dreams. And today his children and grandchildren are doctors, lawyers, teachers, pilots, scientists, engineers, professors, and military officers. What did my family ever do to merit living in a nation where the only limitations we had were self-imposed? Nothing. Not one thing. Life is just not fair. Never has been. Never will be.

And so, because I grew up with a bicycle and not an AK-47; because I grew up playing baseball in fields not strewn with land mines; because no one in my family has ever known what it’s like to go to bed at night hungry or in fear of the government; because no one in my family has ever been forced to observe some state-sponsored religion or suffer the consequences; because this nation has treated me and my family with such dignity and respect; because of all this and so much more, I am fully aware I owe a debt I know I can never repay.

I am ever so fully cognizant that life is not fair. And so, since my country now needs citizens like me with military experience, regardless of my politics, the very least I can do is serve in uniform once again. My military unit, Task Force Salerno, consists mainly of soldiers from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. We are currently training at Fort Hood and soon will deploy overseas. If I come back in a box, it still does not repay what my family and I owe my country. You may consider this statement pure melodramatic hyperbole. I see it as a plain fact.

So, if you’re so inclined as to want to repay this citizen-soldier for his service to his country, I’d ask but one small favor. Sometime during the next few days, take a walk outside, preferably with your children. Kneel down. Then do something we should all do every day. Take a moment and kiss the precious earth that is America. After all, no matter what Mom says, life is not fair. Never has been. Never will be.

Franke Gracia lives in Temple, Texas and was deployed in Afghanistan with the National Guard from May 2005 to April 2006. He is a math professor at Temple College and is very close to his family that includes two brothers and two sisters. He earned a bronze star while he was deployed, which he gave to his mother. As to why he decided to write this series of articles he says, "I hope folks who read my scribbling will gain a greater appreciation of what a citizen-soldier goes through during a deployment."