Have Vest, Will Travel

"Are you a U.S citizen?" (Yes.)

"Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" (No.)

"Do you treat your mother right?" (WHAT?!)

Steve at BulletProofME.com of Austin, Texas, gives me a second hanging on the phone before letting me off the hook. "Believe it or not," he says, "I once asked that of a customer, and he not only answered 'yes,' but put his mother on the line, just to prove it."

After giving Steve more-humbling body measurements than I'd have needed to rent a tuxedo, I have just spent a substantial portion of this year's contribution to the Sherpa kids' college fund. I have purchased a bulletproof vest. A decidedly non-camouflaged, coyote-brown vest. One featuring a Kevlar lining that will stop small-caliber rounds and shrapnel, and capable of carrying thick ceramic plates that will stop a 7.62mm rifle round.

These are, of course, features I hope only to read about, and never to test myself.

It's less of an investment, and more of a statement. It's a commitment, a financial declaration that I'm about to try something that is either the most inspired thing I've ever done, or the most insipid: I'm about to try to follow my Red Bull buddies to Afghanistan, not as a citizen-soldier, but as a 100-percent citizen.

My kid brother doesn't understand this impulse, and asks whether I'm doing it for my buddies, or doing it for myself. The honest answer, I have to tell him, is both.

I'm a Journalism-school-trained reporter, but I left the newsprint grind years ago. For many years, I've been more at home with cushier magazine jobs, discussing trendy house-paint colors, how to remodel your kitchen on a budget, and landscape lighting techniques. A J-school professor of mine once punned that such "service" journalism was more like "surface journalism," but hey--it's helped keep a well-maintained roof over my family's head.

Besides, not all journalists can write about bringing the heat and light of democracy to the world--or can we?

I started the Red Bull Rising blog to help my kids understand, in later years, why Daddy had to leave them for a year of their young lives.

But, after more than 20 years wearing a U.S. Army uniform, I also know the National Guard deserves a little service journalism of its own. After all, I also started the blog to help tell the National Guard story, to explain and illuminate how much we, as a nation, have asked of our friends and neighbors in uniform.

We have asked these citizen-soldiers to drop their plows and their play-dates, to pick up their muskets, and to run toward the sounds of distant guns. We have asked them to re-make a foreign nation in our own image, to train and support a national government where none exists. And, given the number of right-sleeve combat patches seen in the ranks of the Red Bull, we have asked them to do this repeatedly.

So ponying up a few bucks for some personal protection seems like the least I could do.

If not for my peace of mind, at least for my mother's.