Opinion : A much more serious contest on a more dangerous field

A helicopter awaits to transport an injured eastern Iowa Marine in Afghanistan.

A few years ago, a Vinton-Shellsburg baseball player was at the plate. A fastball came too far inside. He turned to get away. He couldn't move fast enough.

The audience heard two distinctive sounds; the thud of the ball hitting the player's back, and a scream.

The scream, however, did not come from the player, but from his mother sitting a few yards away.

I laughed, and I also understood: There's a natural tendency for mothers to feel an intense anguish when their children face pain or danger.

I remembered that mother's scream a few days ago, when just before going to the baseball field for the first game of this season, I heard about a former high school baseball player who was hurt this week in Afghanistan.

That player, Ryan McSweeney of Marion, played in Vinton just last summer. He only played 20 games for the Indians; his season ended early when he went to Marine Boot Camp.

During last year's game in Vinton, McSweeney batted three times, getting two hits and scoring a run. In a game when his team committed six errors, he made none.

Last week, McSweeney was injured in Afghanistan, by an IED. He is expected to fully recover, but as the story linked below indicates, the situation was quite serious.

The Marion Marine is just one of the men who went from local high school baseball fields to far-away battle fields. The batter I mentioned at the top of this column, he joined the Marines, as well. He recently returned from Afghanistan. Although he was not injured, he served in one of those dangerous battle areas; his unit suffered some casualties.

There are others, men and women, whose picture I have taken on baseball fields or in school auditoriums or classrooms who soon found themselves in places too dangerous for the Americans they serve to even imagine. And there are, among our current high school population, current and future soldiers who next year at this time, are very likely to be in some of those dangerous places.

On Sunday, I saw that mother who had screamed a few years ago, when her son took a baseball in the back. She was in church, wiping away tears as a Memorial Day video was playing.

She is one of millions of Americans, who since 9/11, do not need to be reminded to remember.

I have said this before and I still think it's true: Too many times, in times of peace, Americans often fail to remember to say thanks to those who serve our country.

But the injury of a man who just a year ago was playing baseball in Vinton -- and many other stories about area soldiers you have read on this site -- remind us in this time of war there are millions who will never forget the sacrifices made, and the dangers faced, by the men whose uniforms represent all of us.

See an official U.S. Marine story about the incident in which McSweeney was injured HERE.