Afghanistan

My favorite cousin growing up was Brooke. We were only a year apart in age and so we would spend all of our time together playing at family parties. She was funny and sweet and we had a lot of fun trying to avoid housework and our little sisters. As we've grown up she has continued to be funny and sweet. She served a mission for our church. She went to college and became a teacher, and than just two years ago she married Cory Jenkins, an equally sweet and fun guy. He was a physicians assistant who moved her to Washington where he had been stationed with the United States Army. Brooke got pregnant and had this sweet little baby Reagan just a few days after my little Peach was born. A month later her husband shipped out with his group for a year tour in Afghanistan. Monday he died. His convey drove over a roadside bomb and he and the three other people in his vehicle were killed. In an instant that was it. Cory Jenkins, loving husband and son, brand new father, healer was gone from this world.

I don't want to debate about the politics of the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. My personal feelings on Iraq are mixed but I'm sure of my feelings on Afghanistan. Long before September 11th that country was taken hostage by an extremist group. Afghanistan was a functioning country with a well educated population, but the Taliban shut away half that population forbidding them to be outside their homes without a male relative. Health care, education, and politics were crippled, which led to a downward spiral in quality of life for almost the entire country. I was in college at the time, a member of Amnesty International, calling jewelers to find out if they had blood diamonds in their shops. We watched what was going on in Afghanistan and prayed someone would step up to help but no one did, and we were just dorky kids who didn't know how to do anything. When September 11th happened the US went to Afghanistan but the majority of the troops were sent to Iraq. Over time the Taliban gained strength again and the fighting in Afghanistan has continued on, and for many people including myself become almost background noise. I've watched Good Morning America where they mention, "Four soldiers died in Afghanistan or Iraq today" and the number briefly registers and then I move on with my day. I lost sight of the fact that when they say, "Four soldiers died today," what they are really saying, is that today for four families the world has essentially stopped turning. Forty-Five military families have lost someone this month alone. Lets not forget that this isn't just numbers but these are families lives. Here is a site that helps military families. I'm going to try and be more aware of not just what is happening in my own family but what is happening all over the world.