Every little girl knows what it’s like. To be bullied by the bigger kids on the playground; to get pushed off the swings, get her pigtails pulled and get yanked from the slide. But that same little girl knows what it’s like. To have an older brother defend her on the playground. To get picked up from the tanbark and brushed off, to get her pigtails re-done by someone who cares and to have someone catch her at the end of the slide. All little sisters know what it is like to be defended by an older brother. But now he’s doing it from a greater distance. That older brother is now across seas, fighting a war that is so much bigger than a playground spat. He’s over there defending a country and fighting for the brothers and sisters next to him. Yet, he’s still fighting for his little sister back in a cozy un-touched town of Pennsylvania.

This older brother fights for his life every day. He loses sleep over a guard duty and eats items charitably called as food every day of his life. He trains and he suffers boredom for those moments of action when he’s called to protect the brothers and sisters next to him in line. And very family knows you fight for your own. There is pride in fighting for a hurt family member and pride in knowing that you’ve stood up for someone important. When you join the military, it’s just as if your family is expanding. Instead of 3 brothers and sisters, now you have 30 brothers and sisters. So there is absolutely pride in our military.

Remember that these people in the military are the ones we call for when waters threaten our lives in hometown floods or the Katrina waves. When fear stole our hearts as we watched the Twin Towers collapse, it was the military we called in. The men and women that serve us so dedicatedly that we wanted most on our sides. These same men and women are now overseas, and we choose not to show pride in them?

When we live our everyday lives, we see people getting awards for saving their babies from underneath cars or pushing a child out of the way when they’re threatened in the streets from oncoming traffic. We’re proud of every person who during a time of trouble, fed someone or gave them a bed or gave them a job when economic times were hard. We’re proud of every single person who aided others when the twin towers were struck and still memorialize them, 10 years later. Now why don’t these actions transfer overseas for the soldiers fighting there today? Why aren’t we proud of the man who risks his life by stepping in front of a bullet for his brother? Why do we spit at the person who gives up his food and sleep to take a guard duty to make sure his brother’s back is protected? Why aren’t we proud of the woman who crawls to save her people from a land mine? Why do we praise our hometown heroes in the headlines for something as simple as rescuing a cat from a tree, but the people who give up their entire lives, figuratively and literally, are left to be shunned and spat at?

These are the men and women securing our freedom and more than that, they ARE our family. They are the brother of your friend, or the teacher of your cousin or the step-dad of your best friend. They are your wife or your pre-school teacher, they are the nurse who helped your family through cancer and the one who’s everybody’s cheerleader. These men and women who fight every day are also the first person you want along side you when there is a situation that you can’t handle, whether it’s the up-and-coming calculus test or the playground spat. These people are now fighting something bigger than all of us; they’re fighting for our freedom. The freedom to be who we are, family included. They are our family. In representing our nation, they are us. To be proud of “them” is to be proud of ourselves.