In the early months of COVID, while we’ve had less than 30% of our workforce working, I was here. I still came to work and did my job, it is what I do.
I would have to wait to take pain meds and muscle relaxers until I got to work so I could drive and then push on and do my job at work. I have never asked for an exemption from my duties or responsibilities, I did ask my spouse for several weeks to help dress me (socks and undies) because I couldn’t bend and move due to back, knee and shoulder issues earned over 20+ years in the military. I have served and continue to serve the greater good of the nation. Yes, I did their job as well as my own because it needed to get done. During the handful of government shutdowns in my career, I’ve stood in the breach filling jobs and positions of my civilian co-workers who were sent home. These have been unwanted but shared sacrifices by my family, daughter and spouse-my Mom insists her gray hair came from every deployment. I bear true faith and allegiance to all others who have taken this oath the same. I have missed birthdays, tennis matches, anniversaries, funerals, suffered through a divorce from time away from home but still stand for the constitution protecting it from all enemies foreign and domestic. While our base camp was under a complex attack, I was ordered to hunker down while others defended the base- I had a greater mission to support with more troops counting on me- it was an extremely difficult thing for me personally because I am trained to head to the sound of the guns. I took booster vaccines before deploying to ISAF HQ (Interational Security Assistance Force Afghanistan).
We defended convoys from Taji to all over Baghdad and FOB Anaconda while burn pits smoldered throughout all of 2004-2005. I stood in line to get Anthrax, Smallpox and Yellow Fever vaccines before heading to Iraq and defend supply convoys through RPG alley (Rocket Propelled Grenade) outside BIAP (Baghdad International Airport). I’ve seen the Potomac frozen over while we huddled on rooftops awaiting to hear from Secretary Rumsfeld to address a threat from a hijacked civilian airline. Following 9/11, I stood atop buildings in D.C., prepared for another attack while listening to the President address the nation. We were ready to face down his military for a greater human decency. In 1999, we rushed to Tirana Airfield in Albania to stand in between Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing of innocent people during the Kosovo Air Campaign. We had the job of putting ourselves in between people wanting to kill each other on the Slavonsky Brod bridge. Back in 1998, I stood enforcing the peace, specifically a ZOS (Zone of Separation) between warring factions in Bosnia Herzgovina and Croatia. My fellow patriots watched from basic training the invasion and our training took on a higher priority. At the ripe old age of 17, I stood in line in the MEPS (Military Entrance and Processing Station) getting every shot and vaccine under the sun back in 1990, yes, before Saddam Hussien invaded a small country called Kuwait. I have been and still remain a dedicated patriot.
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