< COLORCHALENGE: GREEN FRIDAY: LIFE OF A SOLDIER>

For a soldier, the mission comes first. This means that needs of the country outweighs the personal needs of the individual soldier. While you sleep at the comfort of your various homes with your families, soldiers live outside for days or weeks on end, with limited shelter from cold, wind, rain and snow in the winter or from the heat and sun in the case of summer. They adapt themselves to emergencies of the day. In the battle field, soldiers climb out of their trenches, carrying their weapons and heavy equipment, and move through the enemy's ‘field of fire’ over complex networks of barbed wire, keeping low to the ground for safety. Soldiers are faced with a lot of near-death experiences. Imagining a fellow soldier you’ve been friends for a long time being killed right in front of you, the trauma is unexplanable. When this happens overseas, the mission doesn't stop. There is time for grieving, but there isn't much. There’s no funeral, but there is a memorial. The hardest thing is in that moment of silence, those who knew the Fallen Warrior will be hearing echoes of the jokes they shared, their laugh, their shenanigans, their past mistakes, their future plans. All of which will only exist in the memory of those close friends from that moment on. The Fallen Warrior, and all of their hopes and dreams, are gone forever. It's heartbreaking. It also forces one to face the reality that it could very well be them one day. As a soldier, you are on call 24/7, even when you're not. Have you ever wondered why service members tell time differently? For example, it's not 11 p.m., it's 2300 hrs. This is because war never sleeps. The hazards involved in being a soldier cannot be over emphasized.
Show love to the closest soldier to because it’s not easy being one. Kudos to all soldiers.
Happy new month and happy green Friday to yar’ll steemians