Coalition of Troop Support - Letter to another Oregon Soldier's Mother

June 2004

We have really taken a hit here recently. Some things are just really hard. We enjoy what we do for the most part in supporting the Troops & their Families.

This part of it, is really hard for many of us. As many of us know it could be just a step away from one of us being in the same place. It truly rips at the soul. There is no easy road of grief and sorrow, each must walk it in their own way.

Helping people is not always easy, and this is one of those things. Where helping never seems to be enough, and one is left with a feeling of great regret for not being able to do more to ease the pain. It's as if we gather for the final moment to help bear the pain and ease the burden, yet knowing that little will help with ether (except time).

Recently someone said to me these things get easier after awhile. I replied that the day it gets easier for me I need to quit what I'm doing. We were meant to feel the pain of loss, for we value LIFE. It reminds us all just how much we have to be thankful for, if only for a day or two, before we get back to the maddening pace of daily living.

Duty has a price that must sometimes be paid. The costs of our freedoms sometimes feels to high. Yet I remind myself of the joys of living in this wonderful Country of mine. Where as a young man, he grew to know the freedoms of Peace. He grew knowing freedom from fear. He grew knowing freedoms of choice. He grew knowing the freedoms of speech. He grew in a land that valued life. He grew in a land of plenty. He grew in a land where he could learn. As a young man he learned of the price paid for those freedoms by others.

He now has paid the price for those very freedoms he grew up under. Someday another young man will learn of the price he paid for the freedoms he enjoys. To live in a land free from fear and harm, a land of plenty, of choices and opportunity. Yes the price is high, and we all tend to forget what has been paid to keep these freedoms we have.

Yes, I will be there to extend my personal Thanks to his Family on behalf of my Family, as an American. As the Mother of a fellow Soldier from his unit, and as the Grandmother of 13 Grandchildren. Grandchildren who will remember that a price has been paid many times over for them, and their Country. Sorry I didn't mean for this to be so long. I guess I just needed to relay how I felt to someone. That would be you as I know that your heart feels for each loss as do I.