I’ve got a question for you… and then a follow-up question.
What is important? Why is it important to you?
The answers to those questions will make immediate sense to some of you. To others, they’ll sound simple — maybe even obvious. But there’s a difference between giving an answer and knowing one. Most people haven’t truly been forced to answer that question. Not in a way that costs something. Not in a way that tests it.
What is Important and Why?
That’s not political. It’s not even theological… It’s philosophical. Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking ourselves what we actually stand for. If you ask most people what’s important, they’ll give you a list: family, faith, country, happiness, success. Good answers. Safe answers. But if you ask them why — and press just a little — the depth starts to thin out.
Importance is easy to declare. It’s much harder to define. Harder still to defend.
I have three children — two teenagers and a preteen. I ask them this question often. Not because I’m looking for the “right” answer. I’m not grading them. I’m not steering them. I want them to wrestle with it. I want them to know.
I want them to think.
I want them to understand their own thoughts before the world decides them for them.
Self-awareness is almost invaluable. If you don’t know what’s important to you, you will chase what’s important to everyone else. And that’s a fast way to live someone else’s life. Now here’s where the divide starts to show.
If you ask a Veteran what’s important, you’ll almost always hear the same answer: family. Obviously there is also the other answers: money, sex, power, but if the Veteran is being honest with themselves and keeping consistent with the overall life experience this is the answer. The second most will be sex, but… I mean… Sex is how we get families. So there’s that.
That answer isn’t unique. What’s unique is what we mean by it.
For most people, family is blood. Genetics. Holidays. Shared last names. For Veterans, family is something forged. Family is the person you would step in front of without thinking. Family is the voice on the other end of the phone at 2 a.m. that you answer without hesitation.
Why Veteran's Define Family Differently
Family is the one who knows the worst thing about you and stands next to you anyway. We call each other brother. Not because it sounds good. Not because it’s tradition. But because there was a point in time when survival depended on it. Because we have seen what happens when you don’t hold the line for one another.
Brotherhood isn’t a slogan. It’s a contract.
And once you’ve lived inside that kind of bond, your definition of “important” permanently changes because of service.
Combat — or even just service in that environment — simplifies life in a way nothing else can. It strips away illusion. Status doesn’t matter. Image doesn’t matter. Petty arguments don’t matter. What matters is who is standing next to you when it counts.
That clarity doesn’t leave you when you hang up the uniform. What becomes difficult is losing the structure that reinforced it. It is hard because we don’t know the results of what life would be without that person. Sometimes, like blood, you wish you never knew that person and that you would never want to step forward with them ever again, but in the throws of combat most are willing to be able to stand up and take a grenade or bullet or even be the wingman… if you know, you know.
When Veterans transition out, they don’t just leave a job. They leave a tribe. They leave a system where “important” was defined daily through shared mission and shared risk. And when that structure disappears, the question comes back — sometimes louder than ever:
What is important now?
If that answer becomes unclear, so does identity. And when identity drifts, isolation creeps in.
This is where people misunderstand Veterans. It’s not that we can’t adjust. It’s not that we can’t succeed. It’s that we have already lived in a world where loyalty, sacrifice, and responsibility weren’t optional values — they were survival requirements. So when we say family is everything, we mean something heavier than sentiment. We mean we have already tested that belief under pressure.
Teaching the Next Generation
That’s why I ask my kids the question. Not because I want them to join the military. (And I really don’t want them to, I lived that hell so they didn’t have to. I think a lot of military Veterans would think that… not that we wouldn’t be proud of them. Quite the opposite.)
But because I want them to live intentionally…
I want them to know what they would protect. What they would sacrifice for. What they would refuse to compromise. Because one day, life will test them — maybe not under fire, but under pressure. And when that day comes, generic answers won’t hold. They won’t hold up muster, nor will they be acceptable. Life doesn’t care.
So I’ll ask you again.
What is important? Why?
And if it were threatened — would your answer still stand? Veterans don’t answer that question casually. We’ve already lived the test.
Until next time:
PEACE
