"Thank God it's a boy." That was the first intelligible thing that came out of my mouth when I had Patrick. I didn't know his gender ahead of time. And I was excited I had a boy. I never wanted a girl. I'm just not equipped to handle lace and braiding hair. Football and bruises are something I can deal with. I have watched my son grow into an amazing child. He's kind and intelligent and sensitive and perceptive. He truly is the light of my life. And though I never intended to have children, there would be an incredible hole in my life if he weren't here.
The year Patrick started Kindergarten, there was a story on NPR. The person being interviewed, whose name and position I no longer remember said that children starting Kindergarten would likely be fighting in Iraq upon their graduation from high school. That statement stopped me in my tracks and gave me chills. The only thing that scared me about having a boy was that most boys seem to inherently have no fear. And they seem to be drawn to inherently dangerous activities. A lot of boys grow up to have high risk jobs, including military service.
My grandfather fought in Word War II. He got drunk with one of his Bears teammates and enlisted in the Navy, telling my grandmother when he got home. He was a PT Boat Captain and fought in some of the biggest battles in the Pacific theater. My father was in the Army and served in Viet Nam. I would love to tell you what he did to earn his Bronze Star. But he refuses to talk about it and has made it clear I'm not to ask.
One of my friends sent me an article in the Rocky Mountain News by Jim Sheeler. It was called "The Final Salute". It followed Marine Corps Major Steve Beck as he notified families they had a loved one killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Casualty Assistance Officer helps the families beyond the initial notification of death. At least in the Marine Corps they do. The article was soul-wrenching. It was sad and hard to read. I'm glad I read it but it was a hard read.
Last week, I found out the article had been turned into a book. I got it and just finished it. The book was harder to read than the article. It was heart-breaking. I managed to not cry until I got about 100 pages in. Navy medic Christopher "Doc" Anderson was killed in Iraq, saving a Marine. Mr. Sheeler wrote about Doc's parents at the funeral home. His mother was upset and said that Christopher promised he'd be safe and she wanted to talk to him. Then she said, "My heart hurts. My heart hurts. It was my job to take care of him. I shouldn't have let him go. I shouldn't have let him go."
I started crying when I read that sentence. It was heart-wrenching. All I could think about was I have a son. And one day he'll be an adult and he may join the military. I don't know if I could survive losing my child. I don't know that I could bury my child. And my political beliefs aside, it seems to hard to accept. You never understand until you're a parent the unwritten rule that you're not supposed to bury your child. As a parent, your job is to protect your child. To keep them out of harm's way. That instinct, I would imagine, never leaves, even into your child's adult years.
It is so unfair that these families have to bury their children. It is unfair that young women in the early 20s are widows. It is unfair that a generation of children are going to grow up never knowing their fathers or sometimes their mothers. It's so sad.
The book follows Major Beck and the families who lose loved ones. It's such an important book. The Government has placed restrictions on photographing caskets and military funerals for the men and women who die in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm just cynical enough to believe that it was done for political purposes to stop photos of caskets from showing up in anti-war literature. The effect of this regulation is to remove us, the general public - one step from the death that is happening. The caskets no longer fly on commercial flights, removing us another step from the young men and women who are sacrificing their lives in defense of our freedom.
There is a part of the book that follows a Native American who was killed in Iraq, Brett Lundstrom. There was a wake on the reservation. The tribe came out for it. They do a roll-call and they gave Brett his name for the afterlife. I don't want to give to much away, but it was incredibly beautiful and moving. It makes me wish we had something akin to what the Native Americans have to celebrate life and death.
One of the most moving parts of the book for me was Katherine Cathey, whose husband was killed in Iraq. She was pregnant when he was killed. She spent the night in the funeral home with his casket the night before the funeral. The Marines made her a bed and stood watch all night while she slept in the room with her husband's body.
The soldiers who escort the bodies and who stand guard are incredible. We owe them much more than we give them. We tend, I think thanks to the current Administration's policies and lack of media coverage, to be removed from this war. We live our lives without much thought about what's going on half a world away. We just want cheap gas and to sustain our way of life. Gas is not cheap and our way of life is choking us to death. And it's killing off a generation of men and women. We owe these soldiers so much.
These are the things that should be part of the discussion about the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan, but are not. It's just not publicized and it should be. This was is costing us so much more than money and loss of esteem in the World's eyes. It's something that we should be thinking and talking about.
We can start the discussion by being educated on the subject. You can do that by reading Jim Sheeler's amazing and moving article. You can find the article at the link below. It's a difficult but necessary read.
http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/news/finalSalute/
