Goodbye To A Man I Never Knew...

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?” Ghandi

I didn’t know Jacob Schmuecker. Never met him. Somehow though he seems so familiar. His face stares out from his basic training photo exactly like the faces of so many before him. Jacob was 27 years old and he was born and raised in the tiny town of Atkinson Nebraska, a town that aptly fit’s the description of “the middle of nowhere.” He was a loving husband and the father of three beautiful children. He was a Son, a brother, and an adoring family man. Now, like so many before him, Jacob has become a hero, a martyr, and a horrible reminder of the cost of war. On July 21 Jacob was killed by a roadside bomb in Balad, Iraq while on patrol with his unit from the Nebraska National Guard. This is how I will remember a man I never knew. What kind of life did Jacob lead? Did he grow up happy? Was he loved? Of course he was. I imagine he spent his summer nights doing what most young boys in rural America do. Chasing firefly’s with his father. Learning to hunt and to fish and being taught the finer points of what it takes to be a good man. He would have spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch imitating the actions of his father while his hero pretended not to notice. He played childish games with his friends and he paid the price with a lifetimes worth of skinned knees and broken bicycles. The early lessons he learned began to turn him into the man he would become. As he grew older and began the inevitable, painful period between child hood and adulthood Jacob, like every child in America, began to slip away from his parents. Being a cornhusker, I imagine he played football in school. He took his lumps and played as well as he could. He dreamed of girls and of being a rock star. He bought a truck and got a job after school in order to pay for his weekends out with his friends and his girl. He did as well as he could in school and began to think of what life might be like after school. Would he go to college? How would he pay for it? Maybe he would just get a good job and try to build a career. Maybe he would get married and raise a family. His entire life was ahead of him and the sky was the limit. I have no idea what led Jacob to join the National guard. According to his enlistment records he must of signed up shortly after 9/11. Like so many other young Americans in the aftermath of that horrible day it’s entirely possible that he felt the cold chill of a wounded nation and decided that it was time for him to do his part to ensure that this never happened again. I can imagine that Jacob believed, like so many others, that he was going to Afghanistan to fight Al quaida and avenge the wounds we suffered on 9/11. Instead, Jacob’s nobility carried him to the hellish wasteland of Al Anbar province in Iraq and on July 21 Jacob’s children lost their father. His parents lost a son. His brother lost his best friend and his wife became a widow. The price of war can never be paid for. I don’t know what led me to write this column. Maybe it was the picture. Jacobs face looked so familiar I had to do a double take. At first I thought I knew him. Then I realized that I did know him. His was the face of every American casualty of war I have ever seen. That odd look of determined toughness and frightened innocence. From the fields of Gettysburg to the shores of Normandy and to the jungles of Vietnam through time to Anbar province and Jacob. They all look so alike. It makes me sad. I wonder if the men who send these children into battle ever look at the faces. I doubt it and that also makes me sad. Goodbye Jacob.