My husband, Skip Mowatt, is a sergeant/detective with the Paris Police Department and a 20-year staff sergeant in the Army National Guard.

He has been on Guard duty for over a month now and has been given orders for another 90 days.

When people ask what they can do, I tell them about Chris’s Light, a national project where neighbors put small lights or lamps in windows and are keeping them lit until the troops come home.

We hear of the hardships. People complain employees have had to leave with little notice and there is uncertainty about how long they’ll be gone.

My view of hardship is seeing young men and women just starting their adult lives on the front line.

Hardship is the Marine father who left his very ill 4-month-old in need of a heart transplant.

Hardship is officers telling a family of the death of a soldier.

Hardship is not being here for the birth of a child, or the death of a loved one.

Now is the time for families, neighbors, employers and friends to stand with the families whose loved ones have gone to war for what we pray is a short time.

Let us make the best of today and pray for peace to come and our loved ones to return safely to us. Let’s put lights in our windows and show pride and respect for soldiers fighting for our freedom.

As a military family, it is what we need.

Sue Mowatt, South Paris

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