Forget Politics for a Few Moments — and Give Thanks

Like most Amer­i­cans, I watched the final Pres­i­den­tial debate last night. I found myself yelling at the tele­vi­sion set a few times, want­ing to turn it off and walk away, but unable to stop watch­ing the train wreck that this cam­paign has become.

And this morn­ing, I was still fired up about the upcom­ing elec­tion, my head — like so many Amer­i­cans’ — swirling with thoughts of the econ­omy, the deficit, the hous­ing mar­ket, the future of my health care plan, my 401K account (and the monthly state­ments sit­ting on my desk, still in the sealed envelopes in which the let­ter car­rier deliv­ered them that I don’t have the courage to open), for­eign pol­icy, the finan­cial cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have now dragged on longer than World War II did …

As is my cus­tom, when I got to work this morn­ing, I vis­ited the Sacra­mento Bee’s web­site, plan­ning to click on the “Pol­i­tics” link to read about local and State issues.

Instead, I found myself drawn to the photo that graced the newspaper’s home page of the young fam­ily at the shore. I had to know why that young cou­ple — the wife lean­ing lov­ingly into her strong husband’s chest — was promi­nently dis­played. I caught my breath when I read the head­line, hop­ing that it didn’t mean what I already knew to be true: “Soldier’s sor­row­ful home­com­ing — Dad brings body of his only child, killed in Iraq last week, back to Sacramento.”

Sud­denly, my intense loathing of Sarah Palin and every­thing she stands for did not mat­ter. In that moment, I no longer remem­bered who scored the biggest zinger dur­ing last night’s debate. For the min­utes that fol­lowed, tears rolled down my cheeks as I learned about the sac­ri­fice that young hus­band and father’s fam­ily has suf­fered for the good of their coun­try, and it didn’t mat­ter who wins on Novem­ber 4, 2008. Because the real­ity is that one Sacra­mento fam­ily — like so many other fam­i­lies who have bid farewell to the sol­diers among them and then held their breath between the long-distance reas­sur­ances that they are still okay — has suf­fered the great­est imag­in­able loss. And in the face of that real­ity, pol­i­tics just didn’t — and don’t — matter.

Bradley Clark is the direc­tor of oper­a­tions for Kalitta Char­ters, a com­pany that con­tracts with the Depart­ment of Defense to trans­port the bod­ies of those who die over­seas back to their fam­i­lies. Mr. Clark per­forms dif­fi­cult, but nec­es­sary work. His is an hon­or­able pro­fes­sion about which he says, “We’re proud to bring the fallen sol­diers home.”

But today Mr. Clark was called upon to per­form a task that should never be expected of any par­ent. Today, he brought home the body of his only child, Sgt. Michael Kyle Clark, pic­tured in the three-and-a-half-year-old photo above.

Michael Clark was a fire sup­port spe­cial­ist who coör­di­nated and deter­mined which enemy tar­gets to fire at. He died dur­ing his sec­ond deploy­ment to Iraq which was sched­uled to end in early 2009, just three days after he and his wife marked their fifth wed­ding anniver­sary. He was 24 years old. His mother, a sys­tems ana­lyst for the State of California’s Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions and Reha­bil­i­ta­tion told the Bee that Michael’s wife and child “were every­thing to him.” Just as Michael was undoubt­edly “every­thing” to his mother and father, to whom, as fate would have it, fell the sad duty of bring­ing Michael home for the last time.

Gov­er­nor Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger issued a pre­pared state­ment, not­ing that Michael’s ser­vice and sac­ri­fice will “for­ever be remem­bered,” and ordered Sacra­mento flags to fly at half-staff.

This coun­try would not exist, even in its cur­rent imper­fect, strug­gling state, but for the sac­ri­fice of gen­er­a­tions of sol­diers like Michael who have fought for and defended it dur­ing so many wars on so many dif­fer­ent continents.

The domes­tic issues we are fac­ing are daunt­ing. As Barack Obama has stated many times dur­ing his cam­paign speeches, we face the great­est eco­nomic chal­lenges since the Great Depres­sion. So many of us are strug­gling sim­ply to fill the gas tanks of our vehi­cles so that we can get to work to earn enough money to feed our fam­i­lies, make our mort­gage pay­ments in order to hold onto our homes for as long as we can, and be able to turn the fur­nace on as win­ter set­tles in.

But we must pause from time to time and remem­ber that beyond all of the polit­i­cal rhetoric, the­o­ret­i­cal debate about for­eign pol­icy, and con­ster­na­tion about how and when to extri­cate our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, our fel­low cit­i­zens are still there and many of them are dying each and every day. Many more fam­i­lies will, like Michael Clark’s, be mired in grief before Barack Obama or John McCain is inau­gu­rated, takes up res­i­dence in the White House, and attempts to imple­ment the poli­cies that have pow­ered him into the his­tory books.

Today I am thank­ful for the life of Michael Clark and his will­ing­ness to serve his coun­try, even to the point of return­ing to Iraq after being injured in a dirt bike acci­dent fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of his first tour of duty. He told his mother that he had to return because he had a duty to his fel­low sol­diers and “If some­thing hap­pened, I couldn’t live with myself.”

Some­thing did hap­pen. Some­thing hor­rific and heart-breaking. Some­thing that shouldn’t be hap­pen­ing to Michael or any other Amer­i­can sol­dier. Some­thing that no fam­ily back here at home should have to sur­vive. Some­thing that will con­tinue hap­pen­ing until our elected offi­cials fig­ure out how to make it stop hap­pen­ing.

Tomor­row I will again peruse the head­lines in the local and national news­pa­pers. I’ll go back to loathing Sarah Palin and her lack of integrity. I’ll go back to pro­cras­ti­nat­ing about look­ing at my 401K and bank state­ments, and curse when I stop at the gas sta­tion on my way to work in the morn­ing and watch the num­bers spin­ning around and around, stop­ping at a total dol­lar amount I never would have believed could be pos­si­ble. I’ll go back to yelling at my kids to turn off the lights they seem to con­stantly leave on when they move from one room to another here at home, and I’ll brace myself for the shock when I see how much money it costs to fill the kitchen cup­boards back up when I go shop­ping for food on Sat­ur­day morning.

But for today — just for today — I’m tak­ing a break from all that and say­ing “Thank you” to Micahel’s fam­ily, all of the other fam­i­lies who have lost loved ones in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the Divine Cre­ator for the ser­vice of my fel­low Amer­i­cans on my behalf. I’m giv­ing praise and thanks­giv­ing for their fam­i­lies, espe­cially those who, like the Clark fam­ily, are in mourn­ing today for a son, daugh­ter, hus­band, wife, father, mother, sis­ter or brother who will not return alive from a war that makes absolutely no sense to most of us, anyway.

And no mat­ter what we think of the politi­cians who sent them there, we must be grate­ful for their ser­vice because they are there not for the politi­cians, but on our behalf. Please join me in pray­ing for their safe return to their families.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Pol­i­tics, Thank­ful Thurs­day, War in Iraq

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