We all took the Oath. There is more to us than what is mere flesh and blood. There is the light within that compels us forward. For God, For Country, For Family, For Our Future.
When we are discharged from our active-duty military oath, there is no formal ceremony, no acknowledgement of our pledge to lay down our lives except the official transaction of receiving a DD 214. We GIs are not looking for pomp and circumstance, but what we do require is the acknowledgement of an oath fulfilled.
We served, many of us just teenagers. We served as best as we could. Yes, there is death; yes, there are those who are POWs and yes, there are those who are MIA. Yes, there are those KIA. We all served and us lucky ones found our way back home. We never forget those who didn't.
Yet home, for many a veteran, has now become unrecognizable. We do not recognize the societal need to succeed solely for money or status. The quarterly goal of quotas is not in our DNA. We were built for missions to defend our country and our fellow citizens. This civilian goal of achieving some customer satisfaction survey, some sales goal, some financial quarterly number or some artificial metric of success is perceived as exactly that ... artificial.
Now, our current society is in anxiety over the fact that artificial intelligence will displace those roles that were purportedly upheld with college degrees etc. I say to them, welcome to world of us veterans. However, as veterans, if there is a means to adapt and overcome, we are that population. We are not at war with our civilian counterparts, but we are here to show them that we can overcome tragedy, no matter how painful the cost.
Chaplains will lead the Spiritual Way forward and together with our fellow veterans, we will blaze a path toward success. For us veterans, it starts with a new ceremony that acknowledges our active-duty oath, and now we are in a position to recognize that oath fulfilled in a Veterans Spiritual Renewal Ceremony. Washed away are any energies that may consume our minds of trauma, grief or moral injuries. Rebuilt is our foundation with a sense of purpose guided by divine grace. And together with our foundation established with God, mentors to guide us and the spirit of "e pluribus unum," we shall be welcomed home to our land, our country.
As it is written in our country's official motto "In God We Trust"; as it written in our Pledge "One Nation Under God"; as it is sworn in our oath of military service "So Help Me God"; and as it is stated in many of our veteran organizations "In God We Trust."
Either we become the 22 veteran suicides per day, or we do something to reach that veteran by the very first step: Welcome Home.
