1,316,175. One million, three-hundred sixteen-thousand, one-hundred and seventy-five. That's the reported number of how many American soldiers have died for this country since the Revolutionary War.
I'd like to think that I could understand the magnitude of what those numbers mean. Sometimes I convince myself that I do understand, because of the stories I've heard or the things I've witnessed. My Papa, Bernie Boxx, was a cook on a submarine during World War II. While he never was involved in any real combat, several of his closest friends were...and many of them were killed. As a missionary in France, I was able to speak with several French and American Veterans that lived through the Nazi regime. I served in a small coastal town called Saint-Nazaire, a city that was completely decimated by raid bombings in 1942. I've seen several movies that realistically depict the horrors of war. I've read history books and watched documentaries that revisit Vietnam, Gettysburg, Bunker Hill, the Persian Gulf, Normandy, and Afghanistan. But I will never fully be able to understand what each of those young men and women personally went through to preserve this nation's freedom.
I just turned 23, and sometimes life as a college student gets me down and out. Yet I realize that had I been born 70, or even 30 years ago, I wouldn't have had an opportunity to go to school at all. I wouldn't be worried about any of things that I worry about today. I would probably be stuck on some beach being shot at. Sometimes we don't realize how fortunate we are because of the sacrifices of generations that came before us. They gave up their youth, and some their very lives, so we could enjoy ours.
