FROM WHERE DOES IT COME?
What motivates the ones who go out into a life of duty that will require them to charge into the face of death? Is it for a cause... Some grand idea? Is it for personal reasons? Is it because of something that they are hard pressed to put into words that can tell anything to others?
Why does a young man leave the love of his life standing in tears waving goodbye? Why does a person who has a family and loved ones leave home, spouse, children, everything held dear and go off into a duty that requires months or years of separation from all that means life and happiness to most people to serve in a battle zone where it is very possible they may not return... Or if they do return, never be the same person who left just months earlier? What is the driving force? What is it that, even as it tears out their hearts, drives them to go into a profession that demands they lay their lives on the line for the peace and welfare of others? Why can't they just stay home and work in a peaceful, safe profession?
Families and loved ones have been asking these questions for as long as there has been a human race. I shall never forget the initial response of my spouse when I told her of my deep desire to become a Peace Keeper. It was, to her, as though I had told her I was going to kill myself. It took months and lots of discussion and persuasion to convince her that I could do this and live... That was about 48 years ago... and it is me that has outlived her and I miss her so badly that life is sometimes very difficult without her... But that's life. Life is defined as those things that happen to you while you are making plans.
There are different shades of meaning to the answer to the questions I have posed...
But the bottom line is that not one of the ones who were compelled by this internal driving force could not have gone to this duty and still be a whole and contented individual. If they wanted to be whole and alive, they had to go and give it all they could give.
Within this race of Man, there is a group of individuals in every generation that has this driving force within them. I remember all of the responses I received from so many people as I began to wind down my previous profession and prepared to become a Peace Keeper. Crazy... Stupid... Out of your mind... Even the ones who I thought would have the intelligence to understand were not understanding... They could not comprehend that I would want to be among those who just might die for the preservation of Life, Liberty and the Right to pursue Happiness... They just could not comprehend. Yes, it had to be done... But let somebody else I don't know and love do it, Not YOU!!! Why would you leave a career in engineering for that???
Not everybody can be a peace keeper. Many have tried and decided to walk away. If they can walk away and be happy with their lives, they should walk away. Many have tried and found they could do nothing else and be happy... Most of these cannot be happy even after retirement unless they can find some way to still be contributing to the peace keeping effort... And most of us feel that way as long as we are alive and can still move. There is a love within us for this country and our way of life that cannot be described in words... It must be acted out in daily life as long as we live.
And so it was!!!... And so it still is!!! Everybody wants all of their freedoms and more... But they cannot comprehend when it is us that has to do it for them. When they do something to gain the attention and actions of Peace Keepers they usually howl loudly to go somewhere else and do it to someone else, not me! It makes no difference if we are talking about individuals in the homeland, nations that violate other nations or terrorist bandits that violate anyone who does not agree with them including their own people. Bombings, assassinations, torture... I shall never forget the day the Murrah government building in Oklahoma was bombed. No good could come from that except to teach us to be better prepared. I shall never forget 9/11. No good could come from that except that it inspired a short-lived flood of patriotism. How could any human mind gain satisfaction from such acts of cruelty and destruction as these?... Yet there are those that do gain satisfaction from it!!! To themselves, they are the only humans that matter!!!
Yes, there lives among us in this world a faction that has so little value on human life and personal freedoms that they will kill any one and every one who does not agree with them or give to them everything they say they want. These people are not happy in their own lives and they strive to make everybody else as unhappy and disgruntled as they are themselves. This is the problem with those who think and feel this way...
They are driven by an idea that everything will turn out to be beautiful and perfect for them if they can bring every one else under their control and into the same way of feeling and thinking as they experience. This is the problem with thieves, robbers, rapists, torturers, murderers, terrorists and all other self-centered thinking...
They would control the world if it were not for the Peace Keepers who deny self and lay their lives and duty on the line every day to keep the selfish minds under as much outward control as possible so the peaceful minded people may go on with Life, Liberty and their Pursuits of Happiness. This is why there are those among us who must be Peace Keepers... It is because there would be no life as we know it in this world if the Creator had not seen to it that the ones with the peace keeping spirits are always here among us.
Peace Keepers, we are a more close knit family than those families knit by blood relations. In many cases, we are such a close knit force of individuals that our spouses and loved ones are jealous of the dedication and what they see as competition for the love and devotion due them. It is hard for us to be able to teach them that it is because we love them so much that we must go and must perform all the duties of peace keeping. Our dedication to duty, from the most demanding to the most mundane, is our gift to them that secures their rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of whatever makes them happy... And that if all of us did not do our duty with deep devotion, they would not have the opportunities for these things. If we did not love them so deeply, we would not... Indeed we could not... Do all of these things that we have to do, including the risking of our lives to injury or death. Greater love has no man than this, That he lay down his life for those he loves!!!
Peace Keeper, we Americans have been doing that for 400 years of history here on the North American continent... 233 years as our own independent nation. The cost has been great to secure it and keep it. That cost has been paid by people like you through all of the generations since we came here... And if we are to continue as a nation, that cost must continue to be paid by people like you so that all of our rights and liberties remain securely ours. THANK YOU to you, to all of your predecessors, to all of our contemporaries and to all of those who must come after us. Thanks and appreciation to all of those who are our allies in the effort of peace keeping he world over. I SALUTE YOU ALL, AMERICANS IN THE MILITARY AND THOSE IN HOMELAND DEFENSE AND ALL OF OUR ALLIES!!! My Commander-In-Chief and I deeply appreciate your willingness and your service and we will love and appreciate you ETERNALLY!
"BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!" ALWAYS be alert, watchful, suspicious and wary. Take the very best care of you as you care for and about others. See to the strength and well being of your spirit as well as all the rest of you. Your spirit must be strong for you to be successful.
Call or write if I may be of any service... Or if you just want to encourage me... Feedback encourages all who write... It helps to know we are reaching someone who reads the message.
My daughter, Donna, has been experiencing some physical hindrance in her swollen legs and feet. She was so ill last Monday that we had to cancel the appointment for skin graft prep. On Tuesday night we removed a very stinky bandage that had absorbed a black drainage, but there were no tunnels nor burst abscesses to deal with. It was somewhat less the next change but still has not completely gone away and she has been too ill to get up much. We are scheduled for surgery Tuesday for either an abscess excision or for skin grafting if no abscess is found... And the battle continues.
As it has always been... So it still is!!!
"VICTORIOUS WARRIORS WIN FIRST...
AND THEN GO TO WAR,
WHILE DEFEATED WARRIORS GO TO WAR FIRST...
AND THEN SEEK TO WIN." Sun tzu
Training and practice are everything!
Without them, the best results are not obtained!
ONLY LIVE PEACE KEEPERS SEE THE VICTORY!!!
THEY SEE IT ONLY BECAUSE OTHERS HAVE MADE THEIR ETERNAL
PAYMENTS OF SWEAT, BLOOD, TEARS AND LIFE FOR THAT VICTORY!
WITH THE DEEPEST OF APPRECIATION AND RESPECT...
BE BLESSED (A CONDITION TO BE ENVIED)...
BE SUCCESSFUL... BE SAFE...
[My injunction to be safe means doing all you know to do as you do your job... it means
doing the best you can with what you have where you are using all your faculties to get
the job done well and with good results conquering evil and keeping or restoring peace...
it does not mean to avoid duty and honor... it does not mean to cower or allow anything
to hinder you in the process of duty according to rules, law and ethics... it means that if
the demand takes your earthly life you destroy as much evil as possible in the process.
That is my definition of being safe... doing the best you can and leaving the rest to God
or whomever else is responsible... being best employed for the sake and protection of all
the things and people that we hold dear.]
I represent, write for... and give the credit to:
God the Father (my Commander-in-Chief),
Jesus Christ the Son (the Eternal Captain of my life) and
the Holy Spirit of God (my Eternal Teacher, Keeper and Guide).
In Christ I live... with Him and for you I serve...
And I rejoice that you are there whether you are Christian or not...
For God, Country and the Peace Keeper...
D. R. (Don) Staton, Chaplain to Peace Keepers,
Surviving Peace Keeper,
Virginia State Police Alumni,
RETIRED Police Officer Virginia Beach Police Dept.,
Senior Chaplain and Administrative Chaplain VBPD,
DCJS Certified Police Instructor,
Community Service Officer (Traffic Safety) VBPD
Blackwater Alumni
757-431-2190, chpln1@verizon.net
3709 Beacon Lane, Virginia Beach, VA 23452
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