Everyday Superheroes

Note: A little background: in the Marine Corps, the library is in the same department as the Education, Transition, and Personal Finance departments. I witnessed this amazing struggle to rescue this marine from his own mistakes a few months ago and was inspired to write this. I have since seen more and rewritten this countless times. It's time to let it go into the ether (before this note becomes longer than the piece itself).

To often, people say they support the military when in fact they extort them, use them as a political tool, or provide no support aside from that empty phrase.

I am continuously humbled by the lengths my coworkers will go to to help our men and women in uniform.

I have witnessed frenzied, last ditch efforts to back marines out of loans that are unfair and for-profit schools that are even more unfair. Efforts, might I add, that only try to save these marines from the bad decisions they make despite countless attempts by my coworkers to educate them on the proper ways to find work, education, or financial stability.

They are all intelligent and educated and driven by a desire to make life a little easier for our uniformed service members. They work long hours. They make peanuts.

Too often, federal employees are written off as overpaid bureaucrats who waste government money. There are certainly those folks, too. But what I see around me are true believers. No one thanks them for their service. And yet, here they are, day after day, refusing to give up.