Thank You Sergeant Jeffers

Posted By Deebow

Lot of talk nowadays about "hope."  I think Sergeant Eddie Jeffers, who wrote a little something about “Hope” a while back, knows about it too.

 

Right now, the burden is all on the American soldiers. Right now, hope rides alone. But it can change, it must change. Because there is only failure and darkness ahead for us as a country, as a people, if it doesn't.

 

Sergeant Eddie Jeffers was killed on September 19^th 2007 in Ramadi.  I think about him and his loss on this day, even though I never knew him, because his greatness, his talent and his growth as a young man will never be realized as an old man. 

 

And for those that don’t know Sergeant Eddie Jeffers, he had a blog about his experiences in Ramadi and around Iraq.  And this piece was very prescient and spoke a great deal about the experiences of the young men and women who are walking the mean streets of Iraq.

 

I never walked patrol with him, but I would like to have.  We walked some of the same figurative ground in our lives.  I saw the same spark that he had in his writing in the eyes and heart of the young men women that I had the privilege of leading and serving with in Afghanistan.  The fire of youth, idealism and their fierceness of purpose that I see there continues to leave me awestruck. 

 

And I see that same spark in every one of the veterans I have ever spoken to who have looked out the door of a C-53 into the darkness over the English Channel, tightened their harness and wondered how long death would tug at their elbow before they would have to turn and look, shivered around a fire at the Chosin Reservoir with their comrades trying to keep their weapons unfrozen and their bodies warm or, walked point through the steamy jungles of Vietnam with sweat smearing their camo paint.

 

I know Eddie and the kind of man that he was, even at 23.  Eddie knew what all soldiers know; that the fate of the world can often rest on the shoulders of young American soldiers, doing what their country asks them to do. 

 

With 120 Sergeant Eddie Jeffers, and the authors here at B5, I could rule the world…

 

Hope Rides Alone?  Not anymore Eddie, thanks to you and everyone else who turned "Hope" from something that no one could grasp into something real…

 

And to those who agreed that they would forfeit all of their tomorrows so that I could be free today.

 

 

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Comments

Thank You Sergeant Jeffers

Lot of talk nowadays about "hope."  I think Sergeant Eddie Jeffers, who wrote a little something about “Hope” a while back, knows about it too.

 

Right now, the burden is all on the American soldiers. Right now, hope rides alone. But it can change, it must change. Because there is only failure and darkness ahead for us as a country, as a people, if it doesn't.

 

Sergeant Eddie Jeffers was killed on September 19^th 2007 in Ramadi.  I think about him and his loss on this day, even though I never knew him, because his greatness, his talent and his growth as a young man will never be realized as an old man. 

 

And for those that don’t know Sergeant Eddie Jeffers, he had a blog about his experiences in Ramadi and around Iraq.  And this piece was very prescient and spoke a great deal about the experiences of the young men and women who are walking the mean streets of Iraq.

 

I never walked patrol with him, but I would like to have.  We walked some of the same figurative ground in our lives.  I saw the same spark that he had in his writing in the eyes and heart of the young men women that I had the privilege of leading and serving with in Afghanistan.  The fire of youth, idealism and their fierceness of purpose that I see there continues to leave me awestruck. 

 

And I see that same spark in every one of the veterans I have ever spoken to who have looked out the door of a C-53 into the darkness over the English Channel, tightened their harness and wondered how long death would tug at their elbow before they would have to turn and look, shivered around a fire at the Chosin Reservoir with their comrades trying to keep their weapons unfrozen and their bodies warm or, walked point through the steamy jungles of Vietnam with sweat smearing their camo paint.

 

I know Eddie and the kind of man that he was, even at 23.  Eddie knew what all soldiers know; that the fate of the world can often rest on the shoulders of young American soldiers, doing what their country asks them to do. 

 

With 120 Sergeant Eddie Jeffers, and the authors here at B5, I could rule the world…

 

Hope Rides Alone?  Not anymore Eddie, thanks to you and everyone else who turned "Hope" from something that no one could grasp into something real…

 

And to those who agreed that they would forfeit all of their tomorrows so that I could be free today.

 

 

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