How exactly is it, that we can think and process intense emotional, physical and psychological experiences that have happened in the past, possibly not even  by us, but by people that surround us every day?  See or hearing about these times promotes a kind of intense feeling of responsibility in me – a feeling of need, to do something that will not only push me as a human being, but as a soulful person of the world.
I feel often, that  perhaps my generation has lost out on some of the opportunities to serve our country and people, in a manner which we can feel good about what we are doing – where there is something justified backing our actions.  I also have thoughts about war in general, and if I were put into particular situations, how would I react? What would I chose to do or not do? And how would those actions affect me for the rest of my life?  All too often I feel like we are able to live our lives in relative comfort and security, without threat while in other parts of the world, people my age are dealing with situations I can’t fathom.

The experiences of the baby boomer generation have formed their view of the world, and it is one that I can not be expected to understand, because I was not there.  But it is one that I can respect, given the circumstances of the time, the challenges faced by those who were serving overseas and the cultural, social and political challenges that they dealt with.  Those formed their worldviews in a way that I will never get — those life experiences, seeing death and destruction, sickness and terror — those experiences are more real than any type of encounter I can have in my current position in life.  I often wonder if I am a poorer person for not being able to experience these types of events, but then I also realize that those came at great cost.

I think my point is that my worldview feels incomplete because of a lack of experiences to inform it.  Too many times perhaps, we let other voices influence what it is we believe, think, do, etc.  When what we should be listening to is ourselves and our experiences to help form our worldview.  There is no match for experience — these people who have chosen to put themselves in harms way in order to serve a greater good are the ones who will continue to contemplate, process and make choices based on those experiences.  Experiences that, when given the opportunity, many of us will not accept, but for the ones that do, we need to have respect, honor, encouragement and support ready.  For it is those people that will keep these ideas in their conscious memory for other generations of people to hear about, think about and try to understand.  They are the ones with a worldview influenced by experience in a world of tribulation, where we are the ones with a worldview influences by experience in a world of relative peace.