Brotherhood

I was catching an early morning flight to D.C.  Coffee in hand, I settled in and decided to enjoy the new freedom of using my phone in airplane mode while we took off.  I have a podcast app and one of my subscriptions is for Ted Talks.  The one that caught my eye was "Why Soldiers Miss War" by Sebastian Junger.

The question when posed seems ridiculous.  Why would someone want to return back to chaos, fear, danger, and death?  Does that really happen?  As it turns out, it does.  Its a common phenomenon.  There are reports of men in army hospitals going AWAL, escaping out of windows or sneaking out of doors to return to their unit on the front.  Why?  Are they crazy?  As it turns out that after interviews and studies the answer became clear:

Brotherhood

Brotherhood is different than friendship.  It has nothing to do with feelings.  Its an agreement.  An agreement that says you will put the welfare of the group, ahead of your own needs.  I love these other people, more than I love myself.

When soldiers come home, they don't have that connection anymore.  They don't know where they are safe.  Who they can trust, who has their back.  In comparison to that, war seems easy.  So they long to go back.

I wonder if we can change.  If we can have a brotherhood that rather than assembled out of the necessities of war and survival,  is based on our beliefs and ideologies.  If Christ showed us through His great example what it was like to lay down his life for his brothers, are we not called to do the same?

Ask yourself who you really trust.  Do you have a group of men, that no matter what, would be there for you if things really got bad?  Are you that kind of brother to other men?  If our goal at PX90 falls short of creating that level of fellowship, then we have failed.   And some of us will go back to dark and sinful places looking for it.