Sending a Child to War

[babylonsister]

http://open.salon.com//blog/southseattlegal/2010/08/04/sending_a_child_to_war

Sending a Child to War
Barbara Napier


He clung to me as he did when he was a child and wanted to be taken with me, to the store or the gym, wherever I was going. Then I would have to pry him off to get out the door. But now I did not want to pry him away, I wanted to hold him tighter, to make him a part of me again when I had been able to keep him safe for so many months. It felt that way like the most important part of me was being torn away and I would give anything to keep him...hide him... where he could not be found.

The goodbyes had started months before. Each time "my soldier" my son had to leave for that last bit of training that the military had deemed necessary preparation for the killing fields. Wherever they were, whoever was killing or dying in this particular time. I knew in my soul that each of these preceding departures were not goodbye, not the goodbye and I refused to be the one who made it more difficult by crying. So I didn't. Until now because now I knew this was the time. Standing outside of those old WWII Army barracks, in that North Carolina night with the sound of crickets screaming, at such a volume that I knew they must be everywhere.

Finally I pulled myself away from him, because I knew I had to and the longer I clung the more I prolonged our pain. Now it was time for him to turn to his Dad, along with me he had several times seen his son off on less serious deployments, but those times knew that he would certainly see him in a few weeks or months. This was different we all knew it. There were no words exchanged between father and son on that late September night, no words I can recall being spoken, but I could hear the sobs, floating in the humid air and saw just the shadowy outline of the two bodies holding each other as they shook and swayed loosing their balance in the passion of goodbye. It was after all finally that.

snip//

The day he deployed from South Carolina we had to board a plane home (to Washington) without our first born. My husband made a comment something about drinking until he couldn't think. I know I heard the words, I don't remember exactly what he said but before the sentence had fully left his mouth he broke down. I had expected this from him at some point, but was not prepared for the overwhelming emotional effect it would have on me. I finally had to ask him to stop, it was wrong of me I wish I had let him cry. "You have got to stop, please." It was too much... that he also knew that this was a horrible thing we were doing. We were about to get on a plane and go home and let our son leave on another plane to a place where other people's sons (and daughter’s) just like him, no better, no worse, were dying almost daily. Those children’s parents loved them just as much, prayed and cried every bit as hard. And yet here we were letting him go and what choice did we have? It is a basic parental instinct to protect your child, strip that ability away from any parent and it is enough to drive them mad.

And so we went home. And we waited for word; every day as more were killed and injured (severely in many cases) we watched the news and hoped to hear that it was not his operating base that was hit. Not his unit not a soldier from Washington. There is a grateful and guilty sense of relief in learning that it is someone else’s child and not your own that now lies dead or injured on a battlefield far away, in a place we can't imagine.

[Demeter]

1. Don't Send Your Children Into Military Slavery!

Honest to God, when are people going to get a clue?

Just Say NO!!! Loudly and long. Do anything so the kid doesn't have to go.

I thought this nation had learned something from Vietnam.

[Uben]

2. Been there, done that........twice!

Although, my feelings did not mirror Mrs. Napier's. I was proud my son was going to fight for America, but I have been strongly against both of these wars from the beginning. He needed money to persue his commercial helicopter license, a dream he has had since a child. He did a tour in Iraq in 2006 and another in Afghanistan last year. He's been home a year now, has already acquired his private helicopter license and is working on his instructor's license! He got married in MAy, is now working three jobs, one of which is at an airport. He seems to have fell in with the right bunch of people! Sikorski, a major manufacturer of helicopters, let him fly one of their choppers from Texas to Oshkosh Wisconsin to an airshow, and his boss let him fly to Arizona for another function (don't remember what) last month. He has to acquire 1000 hrs of flight time to get a commercial license, so he is becoming an instructor until he can log enough hours. That's about the only way to do it if you're not rich. At $300/hr for flight time, few can afford to buy the flight time outright. He already has about 120 hrs of flight time, so he is well on his way to achieving that dream! I'm prouder than a banty rooster of him! He's just one of those guys you know will be successful in life. He had a dream, figured out a way to make it happen, and did it!

It is time to stop these wars. Nothing good can come out of staying longer. No matter how long we stay, they will revert back to their old way of life when we leave, so what's the use in spending lives and treasure for what amounts to a no-win situation? (my opinion only)