Dear President,

My whole life I have been protected, safe from any harm that might come; what if all of my safety just disappeared? That’s what life would turn out to be like if we didn’t have a military. That’s what life would be like if we don’t continue to support our military, dangerous, unhappy, and unsafe.I do not accept as true that we are doing everything we can for our military. It is important for me to share with people because not everyone pays attention to the military and what they do for us. I think we can really raise our appreciation for them. They need to know that we’re here for them and support them no matter what happens.

The military has many missions. All of my sources have come from military.com which provides almost everything there is to know about the military and every group in the military. Those missions include: rescue operations, medical assistance in impoverish areas, food and humanitarian relief, security at embassies and other locations, policing in volatile areas, natural disaster relief, law enforcement, and piracy and drug interdiction. The military does a ton more than you think, and that’s just a section of the whole thing.

The Air Force section isn’t just flying planes! The three core values that the Air Force follows are: integrity, service before self, and excellence in all they do. The Air Force focuses on flying, but only a small fraction of personnel actually fly. Most airmen and airwomen work on flight support missions, handling loose affairs, protecting bases, constantly new airstrips, missile sites, and even doing rescues. One of the biggest things that the Air Force did was hold a drive that completed as the American complete ‘Books for Baghdad’ drive. Nearly 5,000 textbooks and university-level literature was collected from people in one community, for the Al-Sharaka program for Higher Education in Iraq. “Can you imagine trying to get a college education without a library or books?” - Lieutenant Robertson.

The Army has core values as well, those values include: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless-Service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. The Army’s missions are vast and varied, many extremely challenging, most near impossible. The fact that they get up every morning to do crazy things for us is unbelievable. The amazing thing is, they all chose to do this. They chose to to make it their life, and choose to risk their life every day, to get closer to a better world and not only protect the United States but hundreds of other countries as well.

The National Guard’s core values are: loyalty, duty, selfless-service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. But beyond these special values, the National Guard does so much more. The top things that the National Guard covers are: Homeland security, counter drug and immigration operations, law enforcement in volatile areas, large-scale transportation of supplies and troops via ground vehicles and international humanitarian missions delivering food supplies, building schools, and bridges.  A big thing is, the National Guard doesn’t only guard the United States, but other countries in need as well.

The Navy’s job is slightly different. It will also be the last military group I’m going to cover. The Navy’s mission is to maintain, train, and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, and maintaining freedom of the seas. The Navy missions are tough, the naval sea men are almost certain to share a bed. One will sleep at one time, and somebody else will sleep there another. However, there are many positives to being at sea. Teamwork is big plus and they get the extraordinary chance to see the world. Now as the Navy is focused on sea missions, most jobs are dealing with the aspect of a boat. There’s many different categories to fall under while being out at sea. A major mission that the Navy takes care of, is cleaning up oil spills or other marine cleanups. Every job in the military is difficult, but I think the Navy is the toughest of them all.

Think of what you’ve done in your life. More than half the things wouldn’t have been possible without our military teams. There wouldn’t be all the buildings houses, stores, and more that we have now if we didn’t have our military. Most importantly, people wouldn’t be around if we didn’t have our military to protect us. There would be chaos and apprehensiveness everywhere and we wouldn’t be safe. But we’re lucky enough to live in an amazing country where we don’t have to fret and can feel serene thanks to our military.

Now I think you have the idea of how hard the military works to keep us safe and all of the hours practiced for our safety. This brings me back to my argument, we are not doing everything we can to support our military. They knew that while taking a stand to be in the military their life could be lost but for our freedom and liberty, they joined for our country. That is the most courageous thing anyone could ever do. It is also the bravest and loyal thing you could ever do. By being more aware about the military and their missions, people will learn their difficulties and more people will be willing to lend a hand to support. America is an amazing country and just imagine how much greater we could be by everyone contributing to a cause where a major effect comes out of it. We need to hold off on supporting animals until the people who matter most are tightly secured with the love and support they need from us, which they should already be receiving! If this goal is achieved, America will be spontaneous.

Unfortunately there will be people who think we already do enough for our military, so why would we have to do more? The people who think this do not know everything that our troops do for us, and how many lives were lost because of people trying to protect America. This is somebody’s job. Something that they have chosen to do. These people devote their lives to their jobs, knowing that there is uncertainty of life the next day. People take these huge risks for us, not even knowing who we are. They put themselves before you without thinking twice. We do a lot for our military, but never enough. All we need to do is start making little changes first, but in the long run, they will be big and effective toward our military. Anything at all would contribute something special towards the military.

“People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men and women stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” - George Orwell. In a world where there is tons of violence, and tons of peace, it is our job to support our fighting soldiers to diminish the violence, and augment the world’s peace. If we can support our military more, and more frequently, we could help elevate our military to an even higher level, making everybody’s lives safer than ever, happy and have a dangerously amazing, prospering country.

From Your Serious Citizen,

Ryan McCarthy