The True Story Of The Cowardly Lion.

You may remember the old nursery tale of the lion raised as a sheep, who, when danger struck, realized his true nature as a lion and saved the day, to the immense gratitude of the sheep.

Yeah.

Most people, not just here, but in the world, are sheep. They are raised as sheep, taught to believe they're sheep, and frown violently on anything un-sheeplike.

The operative word there is "most."

Some people are wolves, some are sheepdogs, and some...

...Well, some are lions.

Now before I spell things right out, I want to tell you the true story of the Cowardly Lion.

Note before I begin that this story IS NOT about me. I served in the 82nd Airborne, and was in Kosovo, but I've never been to Iraq, and would rather not, if I had a choice.

Despite the name, there wasn't any cowardice in my friend - let's call him "Joe," because he probably wouldn't appreciate my reference otherwise - or in his upbringing. He was brought up in a nice, suburban, middle-class family, good, solid left-wing moonbats, as seems to be all the rage these days.

He was by all accounts, a nice, respectful young man; he got good grades in school, did enough after-school crap to stay with the pack but not get a lot of attention, and generally behaved like a good sheepie, like his parents before him.

Then he turned 18.

You may remember that year; that was 2001. In September of that year, some very crazy, very bad people did something so awful that even now, five and a half years later, people are still trying to pretend it didn't happen, or was someone else's fault.

His parents ranted about how our government had failed, blah blah. But Joe found within himself some very un-sheeplike urges.

And Joe joined the Army. Not only that, Joe joined as an infantry ground-pounder; the very antithesis of everything his parents believed. They were, unquestionably, shocked by this demonstration of non-sheepieness.

And when 2003 came rolling around, Joe got himself sent to Iraq.

Iraq is violent. This is true. Iraq also has created casualties among our soldiers. While this is true, the news media loves to make much of the numbers, without bothering to note - just for comparison - that there have been fewer U. S. casualties in Iraq than homicides in Washington, D.C. during the same time period.

During his time in Iraq, Joe watched the news, and got more and more confused as to why the media was portraying Iraq, and the troops, in such a negative light; especially considering that he was in an extra-violent province and wasn't seeing the same things that the reporters were apparently witnessing daily.

But something else happened, while Joe was in Iraq. Joe learned self-discipline; restraint; a good bit of tolerance for the differences of others; he learned to rely on himself, and how to use his strength of will to overcome difficult situations.

Used to be, we'd call that "growing up," or maybe "becoming a man," if you want to go way back to where men were assumed to be tolerant, disciplined, and self-reliant.

But what really happened was that Joe figured out that he wasn't a sheep at all, but a lion.

A lion isn't a sheepdog.

And soon enough, his rotation was over, as was his time in the Army; he chose not to re-enlist, and went home, having served his country in honorable fashion, and acquitted himself well in said service. DD-214 stamped "Honorable" and such, he got home, and found himself in a different country than the one he'd left.

He found himself in a nation of terrified sheep, who had been trained to believe that lions are wolves, and sheepdogs are wolves, and everything that's not a sheep is a wolf.

A lion isn't a sheepdog.

A lion isn't a wolf, either.

Now Joe was home, with firsthand experience of what was really going on in Iraq. He knew that the claims of hundreds of thousands of casualties were simply not true; he knew that WMDs were found; he knew that the insurgency was coming from Iran and Syria; and he found out quickly what happens when sheep don't like something.

They ignored him.

Joe has no place at home, now. His family has reacted in ways ranging from calling him a liar to his face, despite his first-hand knowledge, to ignoring and refusing to discuss the entire situation.

Because his experiences overseas changed his outlook on the situation, he now believes that although it's unpleasant, we SHOULD BE in Iraq. His family and friends are unable to understand this. They claim the war "traumatized" him, or that he's been "brainwashed" by the military establishment.

Because they're sheep; they are unable to understand a worldview in which their nonsensical ideology simply doesn't work. They are unable to understand that all the piffle about non-violence goes out the window when bullets zing! past your ear. They are unable to understand that they managed to raise a lion instead of a sheep, and because of this, Joe has basically lost his family and the friends he had outside the military.

Joe is seriously considering joining back up, despite the great likelihood that he would get sent back to Iraq. This is because, as he told me a while back, "these folks just plain don't understand things. I gotta have someone I can talk to."

I really hope he doesn't. Because we need more of the lions to tell the world what's really going on.

There are sheep. Most people are sheep. There are wolves; those are the folks who bomb buildings just to kill a lot of sheep they don't even know.

There are sheepdogs. These are the guardians we have here at home; the cops and firemen who were going up the stairs when the WTC buildings came down. I've said before how deeply I honor them, and their sacrifice.

And then, there are lions. Our soldiers aren't all lions, although most of them at least manage sheepdog; but there are a hell of a lot of lions in the military.

And the sheep forget that they serve a purpose.

And more importantly, they forget that lions aren't sheepdogs; or, for that matter, sheep. They are LIONS.

A lion has no place in a herd of sheep.

It is a sad truth that throughout our country's history, we have treated our veterans very poorly indeed. Warfare IS traumatic; even those relatively functional when they return home have a - sometimes lengthy - period of adjustment before they are able to fake being a sheep well enough to get along in society, and some - maybe a lot - of them never really make it.

Go find a vet. It doesn't matter what war, conflict, or "police action;" go find a vet. Male or female, black, white, brown, or green; it doesn't matter. Go find a vet, and thank them.

Because it wasn't just their lives they risked in your defense; it wasn't just their jobs or their families they gave up to protect your liberty; they risked the very great possibility that they will never again HAVE a home - not a real one - with the herd, ever again, so that we would have the privilege of armchair-quarterbacking their actions.

They risked their reality, and their place in our society, to protect that society.

If you die, you're just dead. It sucks for those you leave behind, but for you, not so much.

If you lose your place in the herd forever, that is a lifetime of punishment in exchange for honorable service.

We owe the lions more than that.

Go find a vet and thank them. The sheep owe them that.