Veteran's Day - A Personal Story

This post ran on Veteran's Day 2009.  I re-run this in honor of all veterans and also to celebrate the end of deployments to Iraq.  This is "our" story.

November 11, 2009
This week's post is in honor of Veterans Day - and a special salute to the Veteran in our family, our son ,Garrett , who served for six years in the U.S. Army - first with the 101 Airborne unit in Iraq, and later with the 10th Mountain unit in Afghanistan, as a crew chief on Chinook helicopters.

To ALL Veterans - and their families - THANK YOU! Your sacrifices in your service to this country are SO appreciated. I humbly honor all those who serve, and all the families as well! The recent event at Ft. Hood is devasting and my heart and prayers go out to all those touched by this senseless horror.

Being a military family for six years was not easy. I decided to write a post about it. Then I wondered why? Was it cathartic, healing? I've never blogged about it.. Does it serve a purpose? I debated hitting publish. It is intensely personal and not my "normal" kind of blog post. And yet, something tells me to let this rip. Maybe there is something you need to know - I don't really know.

Perhaps you have not been involved with the military and the emotional cost of the war on a personal level. Perhaps you only see news bites of the departures and arrivals of soldiers. Perhaps this WILL serve a purpose - maybe you may reach out and hug that neighbor who's son is deployed. Maybe you will offer child care, or cut grass/shovel snow for the gal down the street raising her kids alone for a year while her husband is gone.

It is not for me to be attached to the outcome. It is pouring out of me at this time for some reason I do not need to know. This is the story of one day. There are thousands of stories out there. And many tears.
I will never forget February 26,2003. Or the following good-bye day.

My son, Garrett, called at 7:30 a.m. from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky to say he was leaving for Iraq the next day so we had less than 24 hours to go say goodbye to him. We knew this was coming. He told us to be on alert for his call since early January. It is a 7 hour drive to Ft. Campbell from our house. I sent a text to my daughter at school, called my husband at work, arranged for pet care, and the three of us deployed out of here, hastily packed for a quick overnight trip, by 10:00 am.

The drive down was a blur of thoughts and knitting needles furiously creating an afghan to keep my hands busy, and to keep me from jumping out of the car, truth be told.

Garrett enlisted right after 9-11, at age 19 after one year of college at an aviation school. I begged him not to go. I knew there was going to be a war. I tried to tell him at least to go into the Air Force (aviation!), not the Army, four years, not SIX. I lost that battle too. He signed up for six years with the Army. The die had been cast. War was coming, I knew it, and he would be going. I planned a good-bye party for him before he left for basic training. I was planning this as I attended the memorial for my best friend's daughter. She was in the Pentagon plane! The grief was so compounded. I tried my best to be supportive for my son's decision tho my heart was breaking for my friend, and selfishly for me at having to give up my one and only son to godonlyknew WHAT. It would be war. I couldn't help feeling the memorial I was attending as a friend grieved the loss of her eldest child was practice for me.

The conversation in the car driving down there for the three of us was interrupted with one or the other of us crying and wondering how in the hell we can do this. How do you say goodbye? This isn't a son leaving for college. This is a son leaving for a war! Where do you find the courage for war?

Especially this war. Iraq? Aren't we looking for Bin Laden in Afghanistan? Isn't that where the "bad guys" are that pulled off the 9-11 disaster? Iraq? Invading that country for what??? To find weapons of mass destruction we were being told.

My mind flipped back to Viet Nam. The war for........what the hell was that about? Keeping South Viet Nam from the Communists we were told. I spent 3 years at Fort Rucker, Alabama with my first husband. We saw friends leave and never come back. We saw some come back without wholeness. We saw some come back mental messes. Yes. We saw. We saw families fall apart with grief and despair. We were treated like villians, spat on and viciously verbally abused when we went anywhere off-post. If anyone in town saw me driving our car with an Army sticker from Ft. Rucker on it, I was considered one of "them", the bad guys. If my then-husband was with me, it was worse!

And now I'm going to go say goodbye to my son. My son. My only son. His entire childhood flashed through my mind, every detail of it, every laugh, every adventure, every tear. He's going off to some country that has weapons of mass destruction, godonlyknows what else, and I have to say goodbye. I didn't know HOW. HOW does a mother who has protected her child for his entire life let him go to war?

Our arrival at Ft. Campbell, the home of the 101st Airborne, was in time for dinner. We joked. We took pictures. We filled him with a great steak dinner. Mom's do that. They feed their young for voyages, adventures, long trips. I was feeding him for war. It felt awful. I couldn't eat. I was too busy choking on tears that I couldn't show. Not now. Not at dinner. We stayed together until nearly 11pm. and arranged to meet at 3 am. for "deployment". The army sets crazy times for things. Crazy times, crazy lines. Hurry up and wait is the theme.
Our hotel was on the opposite side of town. We were lucky to have a room at all. Ft. Campbell was sending over 20,000 troops out. There were other families in town to say goodbye too. I stayed in my clothes. It was only three hours and I really did not sleep. No, I was busy. I was telling myself how brave we had to be at 3 am. We shouldn't have bothered with a room at a hotel at all. We three laid on the beds in our clothes. We didn't speak. But we didn't sleep.

At 3 am. we picked him up at his barracks, loaded a ton of gear into our car and drove to the airfield. There were huge containers for the gear - all with numbers on them. Garrett found the one he was assigned to and put most of his bags into it. Then we went into a building and waited in a long line. It gave him the opportunity to introduce us to a lot of his friends. We were all faking socialability - nervous laughter and a tight grasp on the inner emotional turmoil, lest it spill out.

"What's this line for?" I asked.
"Paperwork", he said. It was then that he told us about the preceding days. He made out a will. He took out more life insurance. He left it all to us. WHAT???? I have no idea how I kept from fainting.
After nearly an hour, we left to go to another building. Another long line.
"What's this line for?" I asked.
"Meds." he said.
They distributed ziplock bags full of medications that were to be the LIFE-saving antibodies against the various chemical attacks they may encounter - small injection meds, all color-coded. He and a few friends were looking at them.
"Is the purple one the one for anthrax?" one asked.
"No. That's the orange one." said another.
" The orange one is for..........."

"Good God," I said "Don't you guys KNOW???"
They all laughed. Nervous laughter.
"Don't worry, Mrs. B, we'll get a refresher course on this stuff on the plane" I was told.

Well that sure made me feel better now, didn't it? We left that building for another one, another line. I noticed walking over to the third building that the sun was up now. Hours were passing by, tick-tock, tick-tock. Was I really awake or is this a nightmare?  Time to move to yet another building.  Another line.

"What's this line for?" I asked.   "Rifles." he said.
I gulped, swallowed hard, told myself to breathe. 
Rifles. Nothing like seeing your son in combat camo being issued a rifle. My heart stopped. I had a policy when I raised this child. No guns. He never had one til he turned 16 and bought a beebee gun in Wisconsin to do target practice on the old shed at the lake house. I remember teasing him and calling him our G.I.Joe back then. He was a sharp shooter. Who knew? It didn't surprise me to learn he'd become a certified sharp shooter in the Army.

As we left that building and headed toward the airport hangar with his friends I over-heard them grousing about the rifles, how they were in bad condition, probably they would work or no, you don't think this is jammed?! I didn't need to hear that. My tears were in my throat! My husband and daughter holding my hands as we walked, all of us squeezing our fingers trying to find an ounce of strength to give one another. It wasn't there. We were collectively crumbling.

We walked into a huge hangar with hundreds and hundreds of people, some in groups with families, others just groups of friends. It was eerily quiet for that many people. Very hushed. I looked around at the faces. I sensed something palpable in the air. And then it hit me. It was the unmistakable smell of fear. I saw it on the faces, though the soldiers were all trying to be brave. I saw it in their eyes. They are leaving for an invasion of a country with potential deadly stuff in the air, for which, of course, they are "prepared" with their color-coded crap nobody knows for sure what is what! Stay calm.

There was an announcement we had 10 minutes until the soldiers were to be in formation and all civilians had to leave. I was numb. I couldn't see well at this point thru the tears that had welled up in my eyes. Inside I was SCREAMING - this is insane! These soldiers are being sent to a potential desert slaughter with chemical warfare! What is the war about? Why are we doing this? They are going to the wrong place!!! They are CREATING a war - what????

I was snapped out of it. My son came up to me and gave me the hug of his life. I blubbered. I hugged him back with all my might. "You be safe now," I choked out between the tears. "Please come back to me!" I whispered in his ear. It was out before I could bite my tongue. He backed away from the embrace so he could get something out of his pocket. His cell phone. He gave it to me. "I had it turned off at 6 am. this morning. It's on suspension. Pay the bill when it comes, ok? Oh and here..." he reached in his other pocket. "You take real good care of my baby. I know you can handle driving it home , just watch yourself, mom, the engine is NOT your mini-van. I trust you." he tried to smile but his chin was quivering.

This was huge. The two things this kid of mine never shared. His phone and his car. Nobody drove his car - ever. He stripped himself of himself in so many ways - and became what? A soldier? I knew in my heart I was losing a huge part of my son that day. He would not come back. This was the official ending of his childhood. I could no longer protect him. He would have experiences there that would change him forever.

"Mom, promise me you won't protest this war! I know you and I know you don't think this invasion is the right thing to do. But it is! I hafta go protect you and everybody."

I could only nod my promise. I could not speak. I wasn't sure at that moment if I was even breathing! He was spouting the party line because he HAD to. He had to believe he was being ordered to do the right thing. I know if he didn't believe that he would not have gone at all. None of them would have. It was all over the faces, the fears, the doubts, the resigned cooperation in their tones.

I heard other soldiers whispering amongst themselves -

"Wow, this is it, isn't it?"
"Well, are you ready?"
"Do you think you could actually kill somebody?"
"Let's get this overwith!"
"I wish to hell my family was here!"
"I'm telling myself this is just another drill........"
"Do you think we'll win?"
"I think we are going to the wrong country."
"Are you sure we'll be ok?"

On the way out of that hangar, my daughter, husband and I gave hugs to as many soldiers as we could. I had several hug the breath out of me, crying on my shoulder and murmuring "Thank you!" "Thank you for coming." "Thank you for the hug, I needed this!" They looked so young! It ripped my heart into pieces. Several guys asked me to pray for them.. One guy gave me a letter to mail to his parents, the envelope tear-stained. I went to the ladies room quickly. In there I was hugging too. Young girls (wives?) crying, shaking, other moms who, like me, fell apart. We hugged. We were all family that day. We understood each other without speaking one word. It was a hug of acknowledgment on the deepest level I've ever known.

If I am shattering your illusions of our soldiers being infused with whoop-ass for this invasion, too bad! There may have been a few - but I sure didn't see any happy, let's-go-get-em faces that day. Anything BUT! You may see news clips on tv of departing units but unless you are there, and saying goodbye, you have NO idea of the collective emotional toll filling the atmosphere. 

I clutched the car keys Garrett gave me and began the numb, yet hysterical, search in the parking lot to find his car. My daughter and I were to drive it all the way home, following my husband. I saw the "remnants" of his last few days in the car. It smelled like him. I sat in the driver's seat for what seemed to be hours, crying, wondering what on earth would become of him. I knew I was not alone. Other families were there, just as hysterical as I was. Kids saying goodbye to their daddies, young women pregnant and terrified, wives, husbands, all sharing in this moment of fear and tears. It was the single most heart wrenching experience of my life.

I will write "the rest of the story" - the turn-around, and what the nod of promise created and how I ended up meeting Oprah. It's all good, not to worry. My story is nothing compared to others! This story is not about just me - I wrote it for all the moms who have lived through this day but cannot write about it.
(You can find part 2 my 2009 Nov. archives if you want)

HUG a Veteran today!!!!! It's not about politics - it's about human beings!  A special hug and shout out to Garrett! (I know, mom is a mush - get over it!)