Some of the most compelling images coming out of Afghanistan. Parents making the ultimate sacrifice. As reported by @atlas.news2 an infant is being handed to Marines guarding the Kabul airport perimeter for their evacuation, since their parents are not on the approved list to fly out.
This child, most likely a girl, will not know for a very long time that it was this very moment the one that would undoubtedly create a hard fork in her timeline that would forever shape it. She won’t know for a long time the immense sacrifice that hopeless parents had to make, knowing that it would be best to eternally part ways with their child than to have her grow up in the environment they faced ahead of them. She won’t remember their screams, their prayers as they saw her being raised above their heads like an angel flying up to heaven, into the arms of the soldier whose life will forever be changed by this event as well.
There is a great deal of humanity painted throughout these images. Hardened by the perils of war and having to be overtly vigilant in what possibly is one of the most dangerous places on the planet presently, these soldiers understand that, in this very moment and situation, there is no longer “us or them,” there is no war to be fought here, there is no separation to be made. There is no gender, no race, no discrimination of belief or separation of language or country or birth. There is no contrast between the humanity of these two groups of people. These are just people… doing the most basic and primal of all human endeavors; trying to survive.
And so this marine understands that there is a little human coming his way that, unless accepted, will live a life of suffering, and pain, and unimaginable horrors that some of us can’t even comprehend. But he can, because he has been around it. He understands it well. And so there is not a moment of hesitation, not a moment of concern or a second of doubt. He saves a life. A human life. It’s much better than taking one anyway. And he most likely also knows this as well.
Humanity at its best.