His work done, Jared Yarger sat down to a meal.
All of us do the same thing on a regular basis. But what happened next to Yarger is more uncommon, and far more frightening.
Officially, the former Millersburg resident is Army Pfc. Jared Yarger. Stationed in Afghanistan, he’d just completed a mission and was relaxing in a chow hall. Yarger was reaching for a tortilla when the mortar attack hit.
On June 8, he called his mother.
“He told me he had gotten injured,” Sheila Rutter told The Goshen News earlier this summer. “As a parent, that scares you.”
That fear wasn’t unfounded. The explosion had left Yarger with a brain injury and shrapnel in his forehead. He underwent surgery in an Afghan hospital, and later returned to his home base in El Paso, Texas, to recover.
Yarger has been honored with Purple Heart. On Tuesday, he was set to enjoy an equally well-deserved homecoming after disembarking at the South Bend airport.
Jared Yarger is 20 years old. Though still a young man, he arrives back home again in Indiana having experienced dangers unknown to most Hoosiers.
That’s due in large part to the lack of a peacetime draft. Circa 2012, military service is option rather than mandate. The risks of warfare are academic to civilians safe at home. For those who step up to provide for the national defense — the Jared Yargers — they’re matters of life and death.
We can have principled disagreements about the merits of U.S. military exploits abroad. But we should be united in our respect for the men and women who willingly put themselves in harm’s way. They don’t make policy. They just fill the boots on the ground. And sometimes they can’t even sit down to dinner in peace.
Welcome home, Jared.
Opinion
Related Photos
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Sheila Rutter, left, adjusts Pfc. Jared Yarger's hat at the South Bend Regional Airport after Yarger arrived from El Paso, Texas. SAM HOUSEHOLDER | The Goshen News
Thanks for your service, Pfc. Yarger
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