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.
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.
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