Five Years, the first year

I've been pondering this topic for a long while now. While I want to say something, I am afraid if I start it will all come rushing out in a huge gush and make utterly no sense. So, I'll start, and we'll see. As I sit here pondering I think it better to go year by year. So this is my year one. 2003

Zach came home from Germany for my Uncle Bud's funeral at the first of the year. I hadn't seen him in two years and it was oh so good to pick him up in Chicago. I went by myself and so I had him all to myself on the two hour drive home. How I cherish that time we had to talk.

One of the things that stands out in my memory most was a precursor of things to come. As the family was gathered with the officiating pastor to remember Uncle Bud so that she could write her talk at his service the talk turned to Afghanistan and Iraq. Knowing that my son had already received his orders (this was a secret) and was returning to immediately deploy to (also a secret) didn't help me as the pastor began to expound in great detail about how Afghanistan and potentially Iraq were for no reason other than oil and money and she was so glad her son would not have to fight in these worthless endeavors because he was serving in the Army Band.

I opened my mouth, my son gave me a look I had never before seen and I closed my mouth. In that look, that hand held up flat facing me at his knee, I saw my adult son, the one that had grown completely up while he was away and I was not able to see it. I saw so much, I loved and respected him so much more in that instant. I wish I could remember what words he said exactly, sadly I can't. It was something along the lines of Ma'am, we do what we must to protect our country and our loved ones, we serve at the will of the Commander In Chief, we will go where we must and we provide you with the opportunity to have and voice your opinion. Now, let's talk about Uncle Bud. All this in a very quiet, calm and commanding voice. All this from my son.

I wish I could say that I would have handled that with the dignity he did. I know I would not have, I wanted to slap the woman. Seriously. I tried to carry the lesson forward with me through that first year and behave in a way that was respectful to my son and his service and to the rest of our family and their service. I come from a very long line of military service and I am proud of that but I have also learned not to take sides and get into dramatic battles -- carry your opinion, that is your right.

That first year I wrote this to my Army Moms group, in answer to the question "What have you learned?"


...to acknowledge the nightmare voices in the back of my head and then return to focus on what is, not on what could be. If I stayed with what I knew, that the last time I talked to my son he was ok, then I could remain ok.

...to read every single thing I could find about the conflict my son was involved in, including the cultural history of the country he was fighting in. It made me feel better to be armed with knowledge and the best understanding I could get of the situation he was facing.

...to use and continually check every news source known to Armymoms in the universe, especially those available at 3am when I woke up with "the horrors"

...to find several complicated, highly detailed cross stitch projects that I could work on while watching carefully chosen mindless television shows designed to keep me from thinking (this works very well as an Armymoms mini-mind vacation)

...to depend on the counsel of some very wise women all over the world, and to reach out when I felt alone and just say that--I feel alone, please tell me I'm not. Oh how good is the love of other women who know what it is to be the mother of a soldier.

...to write, each day, just a little bit in a letter to my son, and then send it every three days. Very much like a journal, but for the benefit of my son. Little things. The buds on the trees, something silly the dog did, whatever small ray of sunshine struck me that day I would write. He told me that was a wonderful thing, to let his mind rest with thoughts of home as I was seeing it.

...to always say how much I loved my soldier and how proud I was of him and the duty he was doing, and to always send him things about those here at home who were also proud of him and his fellow soldiers.

...to accept that we are a diverse people, we do not always agree, and while I may not agree I must give my best effort to just accept others at face value and without judgment.

...to accept that I am not made of steel, I will cry, at the slightest provocation--at a news story, an Army recruiting ad, at the sight of a mother with her young boy in the grocery store, and it's ok for me to do that.

lastly, to appreciate the freedom I have in the country my soldier represented and fought for, every single little freedom, there are SO many.


As I wrote this post, I heard a blurb...a recent survey shows that only one in three people knows how many lives were lost in Afghanistan and Iraq...I simply can't imagine. I don't much appreciate the press either, any of them. They focus on bad news, numbers, or they fail to report at all (especially good news). Each soldier is very personal to me. They are ALL my soldiers.