For Families, War Is Only About Fear
It never occurred to me that my children could die. I mean, I didn't think about it. Not once since the glorious days of sweet faces and scabby knees. Our small town was as safe as anywhere could be.
But eight weeks ago, I waited at the airport for my soldier-son's return from Iraq and I contemplated 3000 other mothers whose children died in the sand there. As do most Americans, I have strong feelings about war in general and that war in particular, but when your family has a loved one's life on the line every single day, none of that matters. Politics suddenly loses all meaning world issues, pushed out of your head, are replaced with anxiety.
My kids work for the U.S. Government. One son, 26, drives an Army Paladin, a self-propelled canon. Daughter, 21, is in her third year of Navy service aircraft electronics tech. My eldest is an intelligence agent.
When they left home, I was proud, of course. They chose jobs they felt would somehow allow them to mitigate America's Sept 11. Small town life seemed unlikely preparation for the war against terrorism. I was mildly apprehensive, as mothers are.
Thinking back, I remembered a time when, at three years old, my now soldier son messed with a wasp nest and earned himself a dozen stings. I righteously nursed his wounds, feeling angry at the universe for setting up pitfalls to endanger my little boy. In 2003, two decades later, at his boot camp graduation, I watched a mockup of the skirmishes of war, and I longed to face, again, those innocuous stings.
While pyrotechnics left spots in my eyes and harmless explosions boomed in my chest, I struggled with tears and an eerie sense of something I couldn't name. Those new soldiers' average age was about 18. The Cosmos had a wake-up call for them that no mother on earth could forestall.
That I couldn't shield him anymore confused me. I hugged him, murmuring congratulations and cherishing the blessed knowledge that he was not bound for Iraq. His unit, the 2BCT, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, had been based in Korea since the 1950s. They were part of the culture there indispensable now that the North-South thing was heating up in that country.
A few weeks later, my son called. I expected the usual slightly blue, rookie-screw-up stories and the pleasant back and forth chit chat we enjoyed. He sounded odd. I shrugged off a quick chill.
"So," he said. "They're moving us to another theater."
I know now, that's what they call war - a theater. Ironic visions of actors in grease paint danced through my head. Then I caught up.
"Iraq. Mom, I'm going to Iraq."
The phone felt hot in my icy hands. My head raged and I swear to you I stepped outside myself, watched myself pace a seven-foot expanse of ceramic tile, and stifled a primal scream.
With deliberate control I said, "You'll be fine. You're ok, right?"
Like a duck in a shooting gallery I marched back and forth during the ten minute conversation. Then the phone was back in its cradle and bubbles of hysteria rose in me. I was sure I would vomit. I cried. It didn't matter to me at that dizzy moment if the war was right or wrong. I didn't care about Democrats or Republicans.
Four weeks to deployment. Too quick. One moment he was safe, the next his 4 a.m. calls were backed by the racket of exploding mortars and filled with breathless descriptions of dead people, violence and something called IEDs. Improvised explosive devices. Exploding. Devices exploding all around my son. Close enough to cause permanent changes to soldiers' brains, but I didn't know that then.
I needed television news to be on all day long. It was an obsession. I wouldn't go anywhere in case he calledor God forbid, the ARMY called. Later, as the casualty lists got longer, I wouldn't allow news on at all. Couldn't bear photos of solemn-faced youngsters who would never come home. Every vehicle rolling down my block bred anxiety. Even the mailman. I knew he'd rumble down the street every afternoon, but my mind made the sound of his Jeep unbearable. Was it an Army van bringing soldiers to tell me what no parent ever wants to hear?
Hooking up with other military families, I hashed and rehashed anything I had heard from the "theater" to anyone who would listen. Strangers were compassionate, but how could they empathize with our fear? Sending care packages became an all-encompassing mission; selecting exactly the right contents, a holy protection. One mom sent a microwave oven to the desert camp she needed her boy to have popcorn. If he had popcorn, the world couldn't stop turning for her family.
What felt like centuries crawled by - then rumors that the 2BCT was coming home. Having suffered more casualties than any other unit, they were quietly training their replacements and preparing to move out. You think that made us all feel better, don't you? No. As time wound down, fear reared up. Soldiers can still die, even when they're scheduled to leave.
Two foot lockers, smudged with greasy sand, arrived at our front door in June. I sat on one, and closed my eyes. Hope.
More soldiers died. More injuries. Wives cried. Mothers hid behind doors locked by grief. Fathers sat still, heads in hands. Aren told us of a Humvee vaporized below his lookout tower. Restricted to his post, he couldn't help. The victims were comrades he worked with every day. My mind boggled at what my son had witnessed in this long year of his, so-far, short life. Please God, let him live to be stung by a wasp.
Months later, standing in the airport terminal, I swatted absently at a buzzing insect. I couldn't stared at the arrivals monitor willing it to show the plane I sought. Looking up, I saw my son at the top of the escalator. Really there. I felt like I had run a long way, for a long time.
The hug will be in my mind and heart for the rest of my life. He sighed a huge sigh, his boots on home ground. I'd never considered my kids' mortality, but I knew this was a reprieve for us. I marked a quiet moment for other moms and offered a prayer for their soldiers' peace and safety now, remembering the more than 3000 who will not come home. I still can't watch much of the evening news.