Living in the Shadow of the Greats

Ben Stein has a thoughtful piece in the American Spectator about how he was able to enjoy the good things of this life because good people served their country in the armed forces:

BUT WHAT JUST OCCURRED to me today, December 29, 2005, is that none of this, absolutely none, not one bit of it, would have been possible without the men and women of the Armed Forces. While I was busy being born (and not dying), men and women were getting blown to pieces by German 88's and Japanese mortars to win the big one. While I was growing up, our freedom was saved by the Strategic Air Command ("Peace is our Profession") and by men and women patrolling in the Arctic Circle. While I was in elementary school, my cousin Joe and my uncle Bob were fighting and fine men and women were dying at Cho-Sin Reservoir.

And at the moment I was looking at the stars in perfect peace, far better men than I were getting killed in ambushes in Vietnam.

So, yes, I had a moment of peace and weeks or months of romantic glory, but all behind the shield of the men and women who wear the uniform.

Other happy moments flood back to me: lying in my parents' living room not long before they died, with my mother offering me grapes and my father reading the American Economic Review, and all of us at peace. And this was a rare moment indeed. All inside the glittering dome made for us by the men aboard nuclear submarines and the women caring for the sick, and the policemen of the District of Columbia and the firemen and EMT's, too.

And my favorite moments now, lying in bed in front of the fire, wind blowing through the palm fronds outside, with the dogs and my wife, napping while the dogs snore and my wife reads her mysteries: and all while far better men and women than we are fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families live in terror back home.

A glorious moment: speaking as valedictorian of my class at Yale Law, '70, talking airily about peace and love and gardens of Eden, and all the while, as I chattered in my bubble, high on something, I am sure, with my coterie of girls watching and oooh-and-ahhing, far better humans than I, with far better claims to human decency than I, with far closer relations to the Almighty, were being held in prison camps and torture chambers in Vietnam.

Now that I think of it, every moment that's great in my life shares the same foundation: we live large thanks to those who serve in difficult, life-threatening places and ways.

So, as the science fiction year of 2006 dawns, my main resolution is to keep in mind the guys in whose shadows we all walk, behind whose shields we all live, the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, and God bless them and their families in 2006 and forever.

Yep, God bless 'em all.