Respect The Wounded

Those who put themselves in the line of danger deserve every bit of respect we can give them; those who are injured in their duty doubly so. Then why did I run across this article on Dailymail.co.uk today?

A young man by the name of Matthew Weston was serving in Afghanistan when he had the most unfortunate experience of stepping on an IED (improvised explosive device). Amazingly he survived the incident, but it cost him both of his legs, his right arm, and most of his hearing. He has been labeled “the most seriously injured soldier to survive the conflict in Afghanistan.” Disabled at the young age of 20 years. His initial prospect of surviving his injuries wasn’t good, and his family was encouraged to prepare for the worst. Matt pulled through, and his family is thrilled just to have him around – never mind his life-changing injuries.

But apparently there are others who don’t feel this joy. Ever since returning to his home in Britain, Matt has been the subject of taunts and jeers. Teenagers have been hurling insults at him regarding his loss of limbs from the IED. How can they be so heartless? The article has examples of the awful words that Matt has been hearing coming from these terrible teenage lips.
She [Matt's mother] said: ‘When we took him out people said things like “Haven’t you forgotten something? Oh yeah, your legs.”

‘One shouted at him “If you didn’t want to be blown up, don’t go to war.” It’s disgusting.’
Disgusting is right. These insults reveal a mindset of misinformation in these youth. Perhaps they (or more likely, their parents) don’t agree with the political reasons that young soldiers are being sent overseas. Or perhaps these kids are anti-military. But these aren’t reasons (or excuses) to verbally abuse those who have chosen to show their patriotism by signing on with military factions. These soldiers felt it was right to join, enough said. I commend them for that.

So when a soldier comes home wounded, physically or emotionally, we owe them every bit of support that we can give them.

Tags: afghanistan, Britain, support, wounded

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 9:37 am and is filed under Combat, Support Our Soldiers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.