Game of Thrones

Just finished Season 1 of Game of thrones. In episode 9 Baelor, one part stuck me when as I watched it. Its when Maester Aemon talks to Jon about duty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9CfJqTNwJk


"We all do our duty when there's cost to it. Honor comes easy then... Yet sooner or later, in every man's life, there comes a day when it is not easy. A day when he must chose."


So why did hit quote hit me? Because when I was was in the military, duty was an important thing. Important to uphold and do. There was rules regarding duty if broken lead to court martial offenses. Marines take it seriously. Last deployment a Marine was caught while on guard duty doing drugs. That was Dereliction of Duty which is punishable by court martial and in times of war can be punishable by death. He didn't get that in the resulting court martial. But like the show(when Stark kills a deserter) it shows the seriousness of how the military views duty.

But not only is duty important. It is also very hard at times. Like the quote says

"Yet sooner or later, in every man's life, there comes a day when it is not easy. A day when he must chose."

For many people in the military that means leaving your family on deployments when your newborn child is coming in a few months.

For others it means skipping/missing your love one's birthdays, graduations and family time on holidays.

Unaccompanied orders overseas for few years.

other reasons not so serious but still sucks.

standing in the cold on watch
being hungry in training or in the field
working 3 days straight with no sleep



All of that falls under a service member doing their duty. Yeah it's easy doing Barracks duty back on Camp Pendleton on a weekday where you can split up shifts between duties and get a half a day off the next day for duty recovery. Or showing up to a car wash or fundraiser after being vonlun-told to be there. But other times it's a lot harder ^^^^^see above examples.


But like Maester Aemon says, that is the price of duty...