WHEN WILL THEN BE NOW?

It`s a strange thing, to walk the grounds of a military installation at night—even more so in a warzone. In recent years and months, we have seen much in terms of conflict. Iran, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan. Turmoil has ebbed and flowed as is the nature of such things, but at night, there is an odd sense of stillness that falls. A quietness—at least some nights—that when looking at the sky, the few drifts of clouds, the stars, the moon, you get a sense that you could almost be anywhere. When we look up, each of us sees the same thing no matter where we are; the same sky, the constellations, and the moon perhaps a little different in size or position, but we could be anywhere in the world and share the same view. Looking down... now that’s when our perspective changes. The ground we tread on, the borders we create to separate ourselves and the people we surround ourselves with. How is it that our perspective and the lives we lead can change so dramatically merely by altering the angle of our heads, despite sharing the same sky?

Sometimes at night, I will head to the roof and look out over the flight line, and the two feet thick concrete walls and homes that lay beyond them. A matter of only inches separates the world I walk in from the much different one on the other side of that wall. Though both treading the same ground, the same dirt and sand, the people who live outside these walls live very different lives than mine. The population of this middle eastern country has a perspective looking in at me, which is most assuredly a polar opposite of mine looking out. And yet we share the same sky. We are made of the same elements, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus—heart, lungs, brain, and maybe most importantly, a soul. Despite everything we have in common, the world on this side of the wall is so very, very different from the other. When it gets quiet on nights like this and I find myself on the roof, I wonder if this might be the moment my ticket gets punched. That lull, the false sense of security created by a day or two of peace might precede a sudden attack. A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) or a rocket attack perhaps. Lord knows they’ve come close. Just a few days ago, I found myself diving down beside a wheel well of a bus as a C-RAM took down multiple rockets directly before me. Watching the shrapnel hit the ground in the spot I would have been standing was what many might call a “come to Jesus moment.” I think perhaps a ‘change your underwear moment’ might be more sufficient.

Silver lining—I didn`t drop my breakfast. Priorities, you understand. But it got me to thinking as I looked out over the wall tonight at the mountains and the small, faint lights of fires and rundown homes of the indigenous population. If we tread the same ground and share the same sky, why are we so different? What about our geographical heritage can determine such a dichotomy of world viewpoint? The answer, as always, is religion. There is something to be said for territory and the right to it, history is full of battles fought over a mere few feet of land. But by far, the greatest divide we experience in this world is due to religion. Those rockets they send over the walls, and the patients we receive, are a direct result of a difference in opinion about whose god, and which practice should be observed. The two worlds apart, separated by mere inches, are a result of two nations disagreeing on who has the right practice of religion. As a medic, I have chosen not to see sex, race, or creed. These things will not prevent me from doing my job, from doing no harm to another. At least not unless I am forced to defend myself. But it frustrates me at times to be in a foreign land, caring for a people that are being subjected to horrors, purely because they have found common ground with us. They do business on U.S. bases, break bread with our leaders and hope to see a day that war will no longer govern these lands, and persecution will not come at the hands of their own people. People with nothing more than a difference with us. This might be a simplification of the conflict here, but the atrocities committed upon women and children in these lands will remain with me forever. As a Fire Fighter, I have seen much. People have died beneath my hands as I have tried everything to save their life. I have bagged body parts, washed brain matter from the sidewalk, and seen families torn apart by drug addiction. But none of that has had the effect upon me that seeing the devastating physical, psychological, and spiritual ruin performed upon their fellow countrymen that occurs here. I can see anything. I can take it. What I see with my own two eyes, will never be as painful as what I feel for the people of this nation and the torment I feel for the damage and scars that cannot be healed by hands.

One day, I hope that we will all find common ground in which land, religion, politics, or economics will no longer be a cause for war. No longer a reason to stand on either side of a concrete divide that will never be as big as the divide between hearts and minds. There will be no one to fire rockets over those walls. No one who wishes to harm their own people. On that day, we will all realize that we share the same sky and the same earth beneath it. On that day, I will be happy to be here, sitting on this roof, not fearing for a rocket to land with my name on it. Then, perhaps we will tear down those walls ourselves. But—when will then be now? Soon, I hope.