My Son Jacob

I wrote this in March of 2006 right after Jacob got his orders to deploy to Iraq. It may have been the same day. I don't know who I wrote it for, but writing seems to be therapeutic.

 

 

My Son Jacob

Jacob is going to Iraq. Bottom line, my son is going to one of the most dangerous places in the world and I'm really angry about it. My anger is directed at no one in particular, although some high profile figures come to my mind easily, drifting like targets that they were too cowardly to become. And he brought this on himself, joining (it seems to me) the Army Reserve as a way to break a pattern of irresponsible behavior, and taking a big risk at the same time. Like a young and stupid kid would do. He got the GI Bill for doing that, and that was a way to keep from asking for money from us after he'd squandered two full years of college loans on drinking and partying. High school did not prepare him for the challenges of college. All he had to do was pass the TAAS/TAKS test-of-the-month and they were glad to be rid of him and every other senior. Seniors are worthless in the scheme of Texas public education, they've already passed THE TEST. But I digress. The issue is Jacob is going to Iraq, and I fear for his life. I fear first of all that he may never come back. I fear that he may come back crippled, or psychotic, or sick from radiation (read up on Depleted Uranium, a great way to utilize nuclear waste), or not the same at all. That is my biggest fear. He is a wonderful child and I want him to stay that way. I don't want the fear of death to haunt his every waking moment. I don't want the sight of devastation to harden him so that he can't empathize anymore. I don't want him to have to kill someone to protect himself or his buddies. I don't want him to kill so Halliburton's stock doesn't drop. I don't want him to die before I see him with a family of his own.

I'm also pretty angry with myself for not speaking out against the war. Not just this war, any war. Family gatherings are choreographed so that we avoid discussing politics, we don't want to bring out the passion in our family. We're passionate about family, but we've never faced losing one of us for A STUPID WAR! Blame the Democrats, too. Blame all the idiots in Washington, their free lunch is not paid for by the blood of soldiers, it's too slippery to step in. No, their lunch is paid for by Halliburton, Raytheon, Lockheed, et al. Check your mutual funds, the ones that are doing well have money in weapons – I think it's called Defense. That's market doublespeak. Weapons are the best investment you can make. Bombs and bullets only get used once, then you have to buy more. What a deal! Milo Minderbinder stepped out of the pages of Catch-22 into the Bush Administration. It's all about business, and selling War is good business.

I just wish my son weren't in the business.

I got blown up today

 

A little over a year ago I wrote about my son Jacob going to Iraq. He's still there. Actually, he's back in Kuwait. I'm not sure, because I don't think he's telling us the whole truth, but he may be in the hospital. He was injured by an EFP, a sort of shaped charge that is all the rage among insurgents in Iraq. His words to me were "I got blown up today." Just like that. As if he had stepped on a nail or been stung by a bee. "I got blown up today."

 

My wife and I had become accustomed to the fear of hearing the phone ring, and the relief when "unknown name, unknown number" turns out to have his voice on the other end. (Do you know that the military does not allow soldiers free calls home? The business of war is good for AT&T.) But his call was unexpected. He and his fiancé had just closed on their first home the day before, it was his brother's birthday, and I thought he was calling to ask how the house looked with furniture in it. Since he sounded normal and he was on the phone I knew he was not too seriously hurt. He was not in the hospital, he was not on his way back to Kuwait, he was not going back until the mission was over the next day. He had shrapnel in his shoulder and a bruise on his back. That's what he said then. He also said it was an IED, one of the backyard variety of bombs any Iraqi insurgent can cobble together out of junk and some unexploded ordnance. We've gotten good at spotting those, and blowing them up before they blow us up.

 

The next day my nephew, who happens to have a friend in my son's company, sent us an email describing the incident in a little more detail. It was an EFP. It shredded the truck. They had to treat my son on the spot for burns, wounds to the face, shrapnel, and anger. He was pissed off that they had seen the bomb but too late to do anything about it. He really had been blown up. No one else was injured, but the guy in the truck with him has got to feel awfully lucky. It was his third vehicle to be blown up with no injuries. One of the women in this company has been in six. We're all getting blown up.

 

Those of us who are watching this horror unfold see the number of deaths caused by roadside bombs, but somehow that does not expand to the huge number of actual explosions. And that is only one small piece of a tragedy of historic proportions.

 

I believe there is a tipping point in this conflict on the home front. As the deaths and casualties reach the 50,000 mark, more and more families and communities will become personally involved. They will know someone, or be related to someone, or be touched by a story about someone….a widow…an orphan…a quadriplegic…a suicide…and suddenly the war is in their house. And they will feel like they got blown up. And maybe they will start asking "What is the mission now?"

 

I found a website that asks that question. It also asks why we don't fly flags at half staff when a service man is killed. It asks you to sign a petition to change the law.

 

http://tellusthemission.org

 

Flags at half staff for one day for each service man or woman killed. That means we could raise the flag all the way in a little over 9 years.

 

I got blown up today.

The Best Years of Our Lives

I started to watch the movie by the same title as this blog but got teary eyed when Fredric March was welcomed home by his wife and kids. The movie was on when Sherry called and had talked to Josh. He told her that he had just talked to Jacob, and Whitney was still talking to him. He told them he was going on another mission. This was really deflating since he had insinuated that he was going to be in Kuwait for the duration of his time which is less than three weeks. Shit. No wonder politics is based in the "lizard brain", it takes emotion to make it real.

I've always had some odd fascination for the time period during which this movie was made. This particular movie touches that fascination because it portrays the essence of that era, at least to me. It came at the end of a global conflict which defined the boundary of the Industrial Age and the Information Age. While Industrialism continued apace after the war, it was coming to a great hissing end because the Information Age reached across political boundaries like kudzu, covering up everything. The most destructive weapon developed during the war, the atomic bomb, forced the birth of the first binary computers, and the mobilization of legions of brilliant scientists matched the mobilization of armies. At the end the victors stood looking over a wasteland of military strategy, diplomatic failures, economic disaster, and human suffering. But, because their victory came because of their superior ability to mobilize immense resources after crushing defeats, they saw the wasteland as an opportunity to rebuild the entire world. Nothing could stop them, including their own inability to see that friends could become enemies, and enemies friends.

I was born the same year this movie was made, and grew up imbued with that sense of victory that my parents generation won the hard way.