Off the Mark

Here is the story that I wanted to relate for my 2nd story in Storytelling, but was unable to do so.  This is the slightly revised text of a letter that I wrote to one person on 18 Oct 2004 who I thought might understand.  She encouraged me to try and communicate these feelings to a larger audience.  Thanks Taylor!  I have been trying; here they are finally.

I spent over 20 years in the Army.  I recently learned that my son, Jeremy, who has been in most of a 6 year enlistment, just reenlisted and is due to return to Iraq in Oct. with the 4^th Infantry Division.  This is the same unit he went with the last time; the same division I retired from.

I really don’t know what to say about my son.  Part of it is the normal father-son disconnect that frequently afflicts men.   Why is that?  What is it about our culture that constructs our world so we can’t even talk to those who need us most?  And yes, I do have a few ideas but they are merely explanations, not true answers.

Maybe I made his deployment harder on myself than I needed to; I don’t know.  He knows how hard it was on me and it is probably one reason he doesn’t discuss much about it; although while he was deployed he looked forward to being able to tell me things he couldn’t at the time.  I don’t ask because I don’t want him to see how much it hurts me or for him to think that he’s the one hurting me—so we just don’t talk about it.   We haven’t really had many occasions for that kind of discussion either; but that’s just a rationalization.  I wonder how it hurts him?

This whole thing is very psychologically complex for me, and no
doubt, for him.  I do know though that there is a look in his eyes that
was certainly never there before.

I was a 10-year old boy the summer we 1^st landed on the
moon.  I am a child of technoscience and a child of the Cold War.  As a
few of you may have also done in school, we practiced climbing under
our desks and putting our heads between our knees (the closer to kiss
our rear ends…?).  Bomb shelters were prolific, although we didn’t have
one.  I was no a-bomb expert but it all just seemed pointless and a bit
surreal long before I had any idea what surreal even was.

My 1st full-time job was in the Army at a Nike-Hercules missile
battery, 1978-81.  I will never forget sitting on a nuclear missile
site in Western Germany at the height of the Cold War, with access to
the unlock codes, with a new and pregnant wife, and then child  and
learning all about Soviet planes, battle tactics, equipment and so on
and being further indoctrinated into the “us/them, they are the enemy”
meme thinking how all those people aren’t my enemy and I sure hope they
believe the same and if we can just keep our politicians under
control…and now I  wake up and it’s 2004.

I never did believe these folks were my enemy!  But it is hard to
resist the indoctrination that goes on to make a force capable of
fighting the sorts of war we were prepping for; not that today’s is any
less dehumanizing.  I have such a bipolar sort of relations to all of
this.  I am proud of my service, but I am so disturbed, depressed and
outraged at the country I live in.  What happened to the Constitution I
was swearing my life to protect and defend?  If I had any idea this is
where we’d be I’d have found something more productive, and set a
different example for my son.

When my baby boy was 10 he got chicken pox and had to stay home from school during the initial phases of the 1^st
Gulf war.   I was away at a 4-month school and he watched CNN when he
wasn’t in bed.  I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon; he watched
CNN broadcast the 1^st real-time, televised technowar.  Now
he has seen it for real!  I know that I couldn’t have done anything
about this, its just life; but I feel so utterly betrayed by my country
and by most of my fellow citizens!

While Jeremy was deployed I wore a ribbon on my shirt everyday he
was gone.  I got so many varied looks from people during that time.  It
was very interesting to have the State Farm corporate-types look at me
and nod or smile like they knew we were in agreement when I just wanted
to scream at them or vandalize their SUVs.  It was even more painful to
have many of the more radical folks on campus or around town look at me
like I was the enemy, as if I had ordered the invasion myself, when all
I wanted was a hug while I had another crying spell.  Luckily, I knew a
few of the “kids” and did get a few hugs and truly caring questions
about my son.

I went to a few anti-war sorts of meetings, and many of the folks
there had loved ones deployed, but I just couldn’t do it more than a
few times.  I didn’t participate in any protests because my son was
deployed and I simply could not work out what I was supposed to do for
either him or myself.  Near the end of that horrific string of
Blackhawk downings, I went to one meeting and introduced myself as
having a son deployed.  Near the end a woman came up to me and asked
about Jeremy as I had said he worked on helicopters.  I told her that
he was an Apache repairman with 4th ID and she gave me a knowing look,
and then told me that her son was also deployed to Iraq and that he was
a Blackhawk crew chief.  I didn’t know what to do—my heart just broke
for that mother.  All I could think of—I did not say another word, for
once in my life—was to give her a hug.  We embraced each other for a
minute or so like we were both trying to somehow bring the four of us
into one big hug.  I do not know if her son ever made it home, or if
he’s since gone back. 

Another major mind job about the whole affair is that Jeremy went to
war with the same division I retired from.   While I was there is when
we were doing the Task Force XXI Advanced Warfighting force
restructuring process, which was the final testing of the Army’s change
to 21^st century warfighting.  I “went to war” with this
division for 6 weeks in the Mojave and we got our butts destroyed under
highly artificially constrained conditions, constrained in our favor!
Somehow it was packaged to the media as a great triumph by us and the
division was fielded and became mobile over the next couple years…and
now Jeremy’s in it.  Plus, 4th ID was going in under an intense
microscope being finally fully fielded as our highest tech fighting
force.  It would have been a fratricide bloodbath just like in the
Mojave; this time for real. 

Then there was the complete surreality of going to the commissary
and BX (Scott AFB) during his deployment.  There were these constant
ads over the PA system about how all of us family members— mothers,
fathers, brothers, sisters, grandma…— all "are heroes at this time.  We
are all critical to the success of the mission; are America’s heart and
soul, bread and butter…."  It was downright disturbing and insulting.
Of course, most folks there were comforted by it all.  I sometimes
noticed the propaganda during my years in the service, but it is so
easy to see now.  Of course, I got family support group newsletters and
newsletters from the regiment and the division and it was the same sort
of thing.  I understand the need for it for most people, the forced
upbeat-ness; but it is still a lie.  Certain stories must be told for
various reasons, and sometimes the methods may be nefarious but the
message is important—but then that message obscures other important
messages, too.

On a related note, the ribbons I wore (and there is still one on my
backpack) came from the family support group for Jeremy’s company.  His
Mom ordered the 1st batch and I ordered the 2nd batch.  Mary (my ex)
works at Wal-Mart and every one there including many shoppers wanted
one and were willing to pay for them, while I gave away about 5 to my
closest friends and co-workers at Milner Library.  Only 2 wore them for
any length of time.  That there were differences did not surprise me,
but the possible reasons for the vastly different reactions in Wal-Mart
or a med-size university library were intriguing to me.   When I was
ordering another batch from Jeremy’s company commander’s wife I made
the mistake of mentioning it to her.   Her immediate interpretation was
along the lines of “Yes, Wal-Mart patrons are honest-to-goodness
Americans while academics are questionable at best.”  I did not bother
to explain that wasn’t what I saw or meant at all, but luckily realized
that there was no place for her to stand to see it any other way, at
least not in mine.  I am sure she is a wonderful woman but she had to
see the world as constructed in a certain way or it would be more than
she could bear.

I have no idea how to discuss any of this with most people and have
only discussed small parts with a very few special friends.  The
problem is there is no way to discuss this with most people.  I guess I
now know how my folks may have felt on occasion for over 20 years.

Most people in this country have no idea the psychological damage
that has been done to so many people because of this escapade. 

Thank you people of Turkey, I will never forget your courage in
standing up to your leaders when we couldn’t be bothered to stand up to
ours.

I’m sorry!  There is so much more that I could say—some of which I
won’t be able to say until sometime in the future, if ever.   I really
just want to thank you for listening.