Slice of Life: This past weekend, I was blessed to be part of a team from my unit to work Oktoberfest at our location. We grilled bratwurst and frankfurters, and watched our fellow Soldiers and Families enjoy the festivities. I was struck with one impression more than any other: When you really pay attention to people, you see what’s important to them. I saw men I know from daily operations, but when you see them pushing their sons and daughters in strollers, and when you watch dads carry their toddler daughters on their shoulders to the bounce houses, or when you watch Soldiers dab sticky strawberry ice cream off the chubby cheeks of their children, you see where their heart is. This is why Soldiers train, and work, and endure family separation, and grind it out. It’s the moments like these that don’t make the headlines, that don’t get ceremonies, that don’t make the broadcasts—these are the main reasons we do what we do. Our MTOE does not issue us spiritual resilience; it’s therefore incumbent upon us to foster a spiritual foundation that is the bedrock of truth, not just silly bromides about resilience.

I loved the whole weekend, even though my wife and kids were hundreds of miles away. And it was our anniversary, too. Almost two and half decades of being a Family now, and I called my wife afterwards, and we wished one another a Happy Anniversary, and both understood that we endure separations like this for my military career because it’s an investment in Soldiers and their Families. (These times will be remembered, I assure you, by those boys and girls that stuffed themselves on wurst and pretzels and bounced till their little bodies were exhausted.) And when we learn to value the spiritual realities undergirding any enduring institution, we will be better for it. God created the family (Genesis 1:27-28) and blessed it. We are a wise people when we heed the Designer’s manual.