Veteran's Day

 

This is my veteran. 

Today we celebrate our veterans. 

My husband is now a veteran working in the public health sector as a physician. 

Yesterday he came home from work and told me that in almost fifteen years of medicine, he had never had a day like that one. I asked what it was that set it apart. He said: "Just the number of very sick people," he told me. 

He said that he had three codes (where you try to "bring someone back"). One had to be run in the ambulance because there wasn't a room in the hospital. He lost two of these patients. He had to tell the family. One was a wife not expecting to lose her husband. She clung to him. 

How does he do this? 

And even more so, how does he do it day after day. How does he laugh and smile and encourage parents their child is okay and then go in and watch someone leave the Earth forever. 

When he came home, we had an argument over dog slobber. I kid you not. How do you have a fight with someone over dog slobber after they've just had to tell two families that their loved one will never be with them again. 

This picture above of John briefing a group when he worked in the military sticks out to me because of the woman's head peeking out to his left.

Her name was Cheryl. When I was in Germany preparing to have Abigail, she went swimming in a Turkish ocean. Her children were swept into a riptide. She managed to save their lives only to be swept away herself. By the time she was rescued, her brain had died. John went and saw her as she was shipped to Germany to be removed from life support since Turkey didn't allow that procedure. 

I think of Cheryl.

I think of the young man my husband declared dead after an accident on the flight line in a tank. 

I think of the airman who chose suicide over the PTSD that was eating them alive and the doctor that had to declare their body deceased. 

I think of all the people John has helped and yet I can't help thinking: "How does he go back and do this over and over again?"

And then I cannot help but thinking that people in our communities are arguing about masks and whether they should have to wear them. They choose to put themselves in crowds despite repeated warnings that we need to be socially distant. 

How incredibly selfish.

In the beginning, when this virus first unfurled itself on our world, my husband found incredible support among the community. We still see and receive great encouragement, but we also see people simply refusing to do their part. They have their reasons but most involve sheer selfishness or complete ignorance. 

While you refuse to wear a mask because you don't want someone to tell you what to do, my husband will go into work and gown up and down over and over and over again. He will pronounce people dead. He will save people's lives. He will tell families that their loved one is never coming back again. He will risk himself and our family and bringing COVID home on behalf of your ignorance and decisions to not take proper precautions. 

He did it as a veteran.

He does it as a civilian. 

The greatest gift you could give MY veteran is to help in this battle against COVID. Fight with him.

Please.