What I've Learnned About Freedom in Afghanistan

Tomorrow being the 4th of July, I have done some reflecting on what it means to have freedom and what that really looks like. Living out here has shown me a great deal that I may never be able to fully articulate. One thing that has struck me while out here is the idea of freedom and how we may miss what it really means back home. Out here we are truly seeing it in action. I know that there may not be as much “action” as many had hoped for out here. Personally, I’m just fine with that. I don’t need a Combat Action Ribbon or a Purple Heart to prove this was a worthwhile deployment. I think the mission we have allows us to really see freedom start to take hold in a country that hasn’t known it for a long time. This is something that is hard to communicate to young Marines, but I am trying my best to open their eyes to the importance of looking for places to crack the door on freedom just a bit.

We tend to take our freedoms in America for granted because most of us have spent our entire lives in America and enjoy the freedoms that are guaranteed by the Constitution and defended by people such as the Walking Dead. Sometimes this allows us to overlook what freedom truly looks like. Out here our main job is to provide a bit of breathing room for people to experience freedom for the first time. And we see it in what we would consider simple and ordinary actions. But, those things are huge steps here in Afghanistan.

The individuals who don the uniforms of the Army or Police out here have taken a huge gamble that they and their families will remain safe. People target them specifically to make an example of what happens when you choose freedom over a regime of terror. They have made a choice in their new freedom to extend that freedom to their fellow Afghan citizens. The linguists that allow us to communicate on patrols and in shuras have made similar choices and want to see freedom of choice spread among this country. Some of these linguists may never be able to return home for fear of retribution. The religious leaders of the Afghan military are looking for ways to allow for a freedom of religion, something that the Muslim faith holds in high regard, to take hold in this country after 30 plus years of intolerance. Girls are going to school for the first time in a generation despite the possibility that their school may be destroyed because a minority of people feels they don’t deserve an education.

Most Marines would say this wasn’t their ideal adventure in Afghanistan, the adventure of helping a people discover and cultivate the freedoms we take for granted is an adventure that will provide stories for a lifetime. It will also provide mental images that will never leave them such as the smile on a child’s face going to school, when I saw a young girl clutching her school books and full of excitement coming home from another day at school. Members of the Afghan Army and Police force paying such minute attention to the Marines such as a younger brother does to the older, wiser siblings. As we celebrate July 4th and the courage of our nation’s founding fathers to make a difficult choice and pledge their sacred honor for freedom and liberty, look for the many signs of budding freedom in this country. You might have to look beyond the nightly news as I know that the stories of everyday Afghans gets set aside for the death counts. Help encourage people back home and those you know overseas to make more room for that freedom to grow and change this country into something amazing and unique.

I won’t lie, I had questions about what we are doing over here before we left, and to an extent I still do but on a different level. I want us to do so much more and we can to help a people who want freedom to make choices about them and their families. The people over here aren’t much different from us and have the same hopes and fears for their lives and the lives of those they love. It took time for freedom to take hold in America after the Declaration of Independence. And it took even longer for other countries to recognize the freedom that we offered. It took the US 13 years to draft a form of government that we all agreed on and we have been changing it for the last 235 years. It will take time over here as well. We have to look past our instant gratification culture and understand that something that will last over here will take many more years before there is a stable foundation. But I am convinced that it will be worth it and that the majority of Afghans long for a stable foundation to rebuild their lives and country on after 30+ years of war.