Thankful For

We're thankful for the fact that we're here. It could have very easily gone the other way. It could be us that didn't come home. It's not Veteran's Day or Memorial Day, it's not the 4th of July...it's Thanksgiving. And I for one am really thankful I'm here. I'm thankful that I have brothers and sisters that did make it home. I'm thankful for my leadership while I was in. Despite what normal bitches and moans a lowly Lance Corporal may have, I had great leaders.I'm thankful that I'm here though mostly because as I said earlier, I could have just as easily not come home. Questions like "Why me?" haunt me every so often, a bad case of survivors guilt I was told. But now, as I age and as the war, I fought in feels like an entire lifetime ago, I will sit at a house surrounded by friends and family. Some who I like all the time, some who I like some of the time, but all loved. I will be thankful that I am here.I will always miss the warriors who never came home. I will miss friends whose minds did not come home. Men and women I consider family, but somehow lost to me, at least as I knew them. I am glad to have known them, but I know now, whether they are looking down on me from above or up at me from below, that they smile knowing that I am enjoying life.I hope that you who are still here are thankful that you're here. Like it or not we're connected to each other forever and the actions of one still affect us all. So I hope that if you feel guilt, if you feel pain, if you feel loss...I hope that this Thanksgiving you are thankful to be here, for you. Because this is the world of the living and through our lives, we will honor our fallen brethren.