I do not know very much about the military. I do know that it is a favorite analogy of many, including my profession. We can all imagine the doctor issuing commands from the foot of a dying patient’s bed. Or a surgeon barking orders in the operating room as a patient bleeds on the table. Or a nurse gearing up in plastic armor to enter a patient’s room. Sure seems warlike.
But after the doctor issued his last command, and the patient’s breath and body lie still, the group huddled for a moment of silence and collective respect. Maybe we’re all priests, issuing last rites. And before the surgeon barked her orders, she reminded everyone of their important role, of their responsibility to speak up if they saw something unsafe. Maybe we’re all leaders, brought together for a common purpose. And when the nurse enters the room, they are not greeted with enemy fire, but with pain and suffering and need. Maybe we’re all parents, keeping watch over the vulnerable. I don’t know.
I do know we have all been doing a lot of fighting. We fight the virus, an enemy with no mind or grievance or cause. An enemy we cannot see nor defeat. It does not fight back. It does not care. We fight each other. We yell at big government or our reckless neighbors or the panicking doctors or the callous local businessmen. We yell back. We fight the urge to cry or scream or feel scared.
But this fighting is an incomplete story. Because we have also been lavishly sharing, supporting food banks, looking out for those who need help. We have been concertedly caring, checking in on one another, catching up with old friends, listening, thinking. And we have been tenderly loving, coming together in new ways, rising above the chaos and fear and anger to make lemonade from sour fruit.
Yet we forget this. It does not fit our treasured military allegory. We must fight. We must win. We must conquer. This comparison fails us. All of us. Especially those who swore to uphold life. No goal of war is to preserve life, only power. Our commitment to violent analogy robs us of the richness of the world and stifles our creativity, lying in wait just beneath the hardened surface.
I do not want to be a soldier.
Perhaps, instead, I am an artist, delicately restoring the human body to its glory, stitching beauty into pain and trauma.
Maybe I am an athlete, reveling in my fifteen hour days on my feet, relishing the sore back and results of effort.
Or maybe I am an activist, a phoenix rising from the ashes, always finding new energy when the apathy sets in.
Or I am a rebel, constantly critiquing, never satisfied, with no tolerance for face value.
A child, incessantly curious, always questioning, wide eyed and amazed.
I am a daughter, a friend, a cousin, who knows the power of relationships, to ground us, to lift us, to hold us back.
I am a neighbor, who values her community, who is in awe of the generosity of her peers and colleagues, who knows that we are all in this together.
I am a shaman, who respects the healing force of a warm meal, a shared silence, a gentle touch.
I am a dreamer, who refuses, despite the odds, to give up on a better world.
I am a Doctor. A person. Human.
I am not a soldier.
This is not a war.
We are not enemies.
Nobody asked me... 