An Uncommon Soldier

Sunday, I watched the Super Bowl with my best friend at his brother’s house. There were 15 other men there and it was way too much testosterone for me. Let me clarify that. It was sports testosterone. I don’t handle that well. Give me an AC/DC concert. Give me a Pantera concert. That is testosterone I can deal with. Football? Is there a mosh pit in there somewhere? No? Darn.

The game was fun to watch, the food better, and the banter from the guy was overall good. Plus, time spent with my best friend is always time well spent. Here’s the focus of this post.

We had been enjoying the funny commercials. (The dude that looked like he was killing a cat was priceless.) At some point in the third or fourth quarter, Anhauser Busch runs a commercial that brings me to tears. I am sure some of your saw it. For those who didn’t, let me recap the commercial.

The scene opens at an airport terminal. We see people waiting with luggage, calm music playing int eh background. You see a family here, a business man there.

The camera pans to a group of U.S. soldiers, in desert fatigues, walking through the main pathway. A lone person starts clapping and stands up. A family joins in the clapping. The business man turns to see the commotion, sees the soldiers and stands up to join the applause. Quickly, the entire terminal is clapping for the soldiers.

The music fades and all we hear is the applause. We see the soldiers faces of gratitude and smiles as they carry their loaded rucksacks. It is a perfectly mixed group, of course. The Hispanic male, the black male and female, the maybe Asian or American Indian female, the pure bred country white boy, and the pretty redheaded woman who could have been the girl next door at one point in her life.

You can see the pride and thankfulness on their faces. It is clear to see, though, that these are grunts. While no rank was shown on the uniforms, you can tell that none were above a sergeant, maybe a lieutenant. Again, perfectly pitched to show the everyday soldier.

The commercial ends with one of the soldiers looking back and smiling. The screen fades to black and the simple words, “Thank You” appear in the middle of the screen.


There I am, in this room of 15 “manly” man, tears just streaming down my face. Even now, as I write this I am getting choked up. (Damn you Madison Ave for playing with my heartstrings!) My best friend is sitting next to me. I know he sees my tears. I know he knows why I am crying.

You see, my sister, Sgt. Kelly O’Gara, US Army, arrived in Tikrit, Iraq on Monday. She had left for Kuwait on Dec. 30th. I spent Xmas with her and my other sister, Katie, in NC before she left. It was so bittersweet. It was the first Xmas my sisters and I had together without parents and the last time we knew the three of us would be together until at least next October, if Kelly gets leave.

(Side note: I used my sisters’ real names because I really can’t hide them behind code names. If I say “my sister, Liz” there is only two to choose from. You have a 50% chance of guessing who it is. Plus, I don’t think it would be fair to the sacrifice my sister Kelly is making as a soldier to hide it behind another name. End side note.)

Now I am not going to get started about how I feel about Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL), I mean Freedom. That will be the focus of another post in the future. I really want to use this space to talk about how I feel about Kelly, and her being in the warzone. (Don’t worry Katie, you’ll be the subject matter of future posts. You can bet on it.)

Kelly has been in the Army for seven years now. Four years active duty and three in the reserves. She only had one year left to her commitment before she got activated. We knew she was activated for Iraq since June. She has been overseas before. Kelly has spent 8 months in Bosnia on the side of a mountain where she wasn’t in combat. This will be her first warzone duty.
This all brings such conflicting emotions for me. I totally disagree with this war in Iraq. It was sold to the people based upon lies. But at the same time, would I feel any less torn up about my sister in harms way if she was in Afghanistan hunting out Osama and Al Queda, something I do believe in? How do I keep positive about her time there in Iraq? It has gotten to the point where I try to not read or listen to any news from there because I don’t want to hear about another soldier killed or injured. And I was reading a lot of foreign papers so I heard things that weren’t getting reported in American press.

How do I have any confidence in my government when I know the common soldier is getting screwed over? In my mom’s latest email regarding Kelly, the conditions in which she has to live in are substandard. Now I know war is hell, but this is ridiculous. I would have gladly given my tax cut back so our soldiers could have better supplies and stuff. (If you think I am just a liberal ranting about this war, goto www.optruth.org to hear stories from veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Hear about it from people who have been there.)

The common soldier. This brings us back to that commercial. While it did tear at me, I knew it was a marketing peace to keep our sympathies for those soldiers and this war. Because really who gets screwed in all this? Not the politicians. Not the generals. It’s the common soldier. (If you want to see how screwed, take a look at the V.A. cuts in next years budget.) But one of those common soldiers is my sister so that makes it personal.

Actually, she is an uncommon soldier. And this my one hope. Kelly is good at what she does. Let me rephrase that, she is EXCELLENT at what she does. She is a damn good soldier and any commanding officer would love to have her in their team. In her company, she is know as “The Bitch” because she is so hard on the soldiers under her. One soldier even approach her privately about this. Kelly’s response: “It is not my job to be nice. My job, my only job, is to make sure you and I get home. . .Alive. You can hate me for our entire time in Iraq. But when you get home, alive, you will love me. And to make sure we get home alive, I am going to make that you, and everyone, does their job to their best. So if I am too hard, you’ll forgive me in 18 months.” (Ok, I paraphrased a bit about what she said, but you get the idea.)

Kelly makes me proud. Not proud to be an American in a beer commercial way, definitely not a proud supporter of this war. But proud that I am her brother. Someday I will meet a soldier who served under her and hear a story about how because of Kelly’s excellence they came out alive. Or perhaps, because of Kelly’s leadership this soldier grew as a person. How do I know? Because someone as good as Kelly will always touch lives.

Of all the things Kelly is (sergeant, soldier, leader, communications technology expert, etc) she will always be my sister. Before she was born, she could have chose a lot of other families to be born into, but she chose mine. So I am blessed to be sistered by her. And inspired to be the best brother I can be.