3 a.m. PHONE CALLS HOME FROM WAR: IT'S NOT JUST POLITICS
Whenever a soldier dies in Iraq or anywhere else, a wave of uneasiness--fear, revulsion, guilt, sadness--ripples through the survivors. It could be felt on Monday, even as the fighting was still going on.
--"Iraq War Ends Silently for One American Soldier," Dexter Filkins, New York Times, June 29, 2006.
"I don't know if this war is worth the life of Terry Fisk, or 10 soldiers, or 2,500 soldiers like him," Colonel MacFarland told his forces. "What I do know is that he did not die alone. He was surrounded by friends.
"A Greek philosopher said that only the dead have seen the end of war," the colonel said. "Only Terry Fisk has seen the end of this war."
--ibid
"I know this has been a hard week. You guys lost three men this week."
"Yeah. I don't want to talk about any of that right now. I'm just worn out and stressed out and I just want to hear news from home."
--my son, calling at 3 a.m. his time, from the Anbar Province, Iraq.
When the phone rang at about six p.m. our time, I glanced at the caller ID and saw the familiar "AT&T Hits."
That's so strange. AT&T Hits. It sounds so happy, like a top-forty pop-music hit parade from the sixties. The big A.M. radio station where I grew up in Dallas--KLIF--published a list every week of the Top-40 and we'd avidly follow it to see which one of the British Invasion was beating out all comers that week.
I yanked up the phone and said hello but the response was dead air. I've learned to be patient, because the satellite phones the guys pass around from Marine to Marine in the unit is notoriously beat up and bunged up. They cut in and out and it's not unusual for our sons to have to call back six or eight times during one brief conversation.
Maybe there are plenty of troops in headquarters rear areas and in vast military bases like the ones our secretary of defense loves to visit--so sprawling that they've actually got fast-food restaurants on them and PX's. They have access to Internet cafes where they post blogs or catch a glimpse of their new babies back home through videoconferencing.
But for the Marine infantry, fighting bloody battles every damn day in the Anbar Province of Iraq, there are no bases, no PX's, no mess halls. They sleep in abandoned Iraqi houses and in the streets or in temporary posts snagged in war-riddled buildings or up on roofs or out in the desert. If they sleep at all.
A platoon will lug around a sat phone and pass it around when it is relatively quiet so the guys can check in at home and reassure their nerve-rattled families that, at least for right then in that breathless moment of time…they're okay.
I said hello again and waited again, and then said, "Dustin, I'm here honey. If you can hear me."
In response came the telltale death-rattle of the connection being cut, and I hung up immediately because if he can, he'll call back.
When the phone rang again I snatched it up and said, "Is it you?"
"Yeah," he said, and in that one instant, I knew something was terribly wrong because I'm his mama. Talk to me all you want about fatigue or overseas connections but I know.
I said, "It's 3 a.m. your time. Kinda late."
He said yeah, he just wanted to check in and let me know he was all right.
Dustin knew and I knew that his unit had lost three good Marines in three days.
I said, "I know it's been a real hard week. I don’t know if you knew any of the guys."
He said, "Yeah, I don’t want to talk about that right now. I just want to see how everybody's doing."
I dropped the subject immediately, because it is my job to do everything humanly and motherly possible in this universe to keep that boy going, to keep his spirits up, to make him laugh if I can, to reach through that telephone cord, reach across an ocean, reach across 6,000 miles and wrap my arms around him and hug him close and say, It's gonna be all right.
I said we were all fine, and this is what I would have said if we'd all been in the hospital in the ICU ward. I can only imagine the horrors my child has witnessed during the past few months. He does not need to be worrying about the health and safety of any of his loved ones back home.
Fortunately, I didn't have to lie this time like I did his last deployment to The Bad Place. I told him we were all doing well and told a couple of funny stories I'd saved for just this purpose, to prove my point and get him through the next miserable day in hell.
I told him he sounded exhausted, and he said, "I'm worn out and stressed out and I just want to get out of this place and come home."
I'm not going to give specifics on an Internet blog, but I will say he's been in a very bad place, and I will say that his unit is due to rotate home in the near future, but he still has several weeks where he must remain vigilant.
"I'm stressed-out too," I admitted (for the first time). "A friend of mine put it beautifully. She said, "The screws that hold me together are coming loose."
I laughed when I said it to keep the conversation light, and he said Yeah. He didn't laugh because he doesn't much any more, not now. I turned it into a joke and said, "If that makes you feel any better." He said, "It does, actually."
We talked of little things, everyday things, little sanities of home life that he hungers for, little touches of the real world and not the world of car bombs and IEDs and snipers and firefights and death and stench and heat and misery and homesickness.
I asked if he needed anything, if he'd gotten the care packages I'd sent recently. We talked of when we'd see one another again, and I knew the conversation was coming to a close because he has so little time, you see, because there are other miserable homesick Marines patiently waiting their turn.
And then I felt frantic and desperate and terrified because I don't know, I never know, if that is the last time I will ever hear his voice.
When you fear that you may not ever speak to your child again, you want to say just the right thing, and what is that?
How do you keep from being betrayed by the tears in your shaky voice? How do you be at least as brave as he is?
HOW?
His dad wasn't here, but I remembered things I had overheard him tell our son about the final days of combat. How it was easy to get distracted by thoughts of home and hearth, and get careless.
How you had to remain vigilant.
But his dad is a combat veteran and I am not. So I could not say it, but I could remind him of it just the same.
I said, "Of course, you know to remain vigilant. Please be very very careful honey."
"I will," he said.
And then I felt this urgency, this terrible urgency, to say, "Honey, you are never forgotten. Never ever for a single moment. You are in our thoughts and our prayers every moment of every day. We count the days until we can see you again. You aren't forgotten."
And he said, "Sometimes I forget myself."
"Please, please be careful," I said. "Hang in there. Just hang in there a little longer until you can be safe again."
We told each other how much we loved each other, and I fought valiantly to hide my tears, and when we said good-bye, I thought about how he refuses to hang up until I do. I've never said anything about it, but I've noticed it. Every conversation, no matter how brief. He waits for me to say good-bye.
And then you hang up and you sit alone in a silent house that once rang with his laughter and his noise, and your heart cracks open and there is nothing you can do but cry. Sob and sob because you don't have to be brave for him anymore.
When I'd gotten myself a bit under control, I called his dad and told him about the conversation. We agreed that something awful must have happened in the last few days, that he just called home for one brief moment of comfort, of hearing Mom's voice and news of home.
"I'm glad you were there for him," said my husband of 32 years.
The other night, I had a long and quite lovely conversation with the father of one of the young men in my son's unit. We'd met on a parent's forum. All I knew was that his child was in the same hell as mine, and that's all I needed to know.
But I was surprised to learn that he works in the field of psychology, and as a trained therapist, he said, "With all my training and all my education and all my experience, and all my kind well-meaning colleagues…I have absolutely no resources for coping with this."
We agreed that obsessive thoughts, insomnia, crying jags, and constant daily ongoing TERROR punctuated by spasms of panic and hysteria were NORMAL, actually.
Normal, that is, for the parent or loved one of a young man or woman in war.
Together, we fretted about how best to help them when they make those 3 a.m. phone calls; what's the best tone of voice; what to discuss and not to discuss; how best to be the most comforting and most supportive we can possibly be.
Like me, this particular gentleman did not want this particular war and does not share the politics of many of the most well-meaning "flag-wavers" as we call them--people who insist that we should support the war or it means we're not supporting the troops.
They don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Some of my readers accuse me of being filled with hatred or rage, but they don't get it and they don't get me.
When I see politicians use this war as a weapon of divisiveness in order to appeal to a narrow "base"--and I'm talking on both sides of the aisle--when I see politicians who have never dodged a bullet in their lives preen and preach in front of hoards of flags; when I see politicians who care much more about photo ops than about rolling up their sleeves and searching for the smartest solutions to this mess; when well-meaning patriotic souls accuse me of "undermining the troops"--souls who know nothing about the cards and letters and jokes and care packages and homemade cookies and phone calls and love to my son and others I know that I have sent countless times over there…and I look at the daily death toll mounting, and when, in my son's heavy voice, I hear the unimaginable weight of exhaustion and fear and the sheer stress of surviving when others didn't…
Well, all I can say is this.
Can you possibly understand the terror, all you who sit at home in your comfortable chairs and watch the evening news and shake your heads and go on the Internet and argue politics with me?
If you have not been there, if you have not spoken to your child and wondered if it is the last time you will ever hear his voice, then in matters of this war, shut up.
You are not qualified to speak.
--"Iraq War Ends Silently for One American Soldier," Dexter Filkins, New York Times, June 29, 2006.
"I don't know if this war is worth the life of Terry Fisk, or 10 soldiers, or 2,500 soldiers like him," Colonel MacFarland told his forces. "What I do know is that he did not die alone. He was surrounded by friends.
"A Greek philosopher said that only the dead have seen the end of war," the colonel said. "Only Terry Fisk has seen the end of this war."
--ibid
"I know this has been a hard week. You guys lost three men this week."
"Yeah. I don't want to talk about any of that right now. I'm just worn out and stressed out and I just want to hear news from home."
--my son, calling at 3 a.m. his time, from the Anbar Province, Iraq.
When the phone rang at about six p.m. our time, I glanced at the caller ID and saw the familiar "AT&T Hits."
That's so strange. AT&T Hits. It sounds so happy, like a top-forty pop-music hit parade from the sixties. The big A.M. radio station where I grew up in Dallas--KLIF--published a list every week of the Top-40 and we'd avidly follow it to see which one of the British Invasion was beating out all comers that week.
I yanked up the phone and said hello but the response was dead air. I've learned to be patient, because the satellite phones the guys pass around from Marine to Marine in the unit is notoriously beat up and bunged up. They cut in and out and it's not unusual for our sons to have to call back six or eight times during one brief conversation.
Maybe there are plenty of troops in headquarters rear areas and in vast military bases like the ones our secretary of defense loves to visit--so sprawling that they've actually got fast-food restaurants on them and PX's. They have access to Internet cafes where they post blogs or catch a glimpse of their new babies back home through videoconferencing.
But for the Marine infantry, fighting bloody battles every damn day in the Anbar Province of Iraq, there are no bases, no PX's, no mess halls. They sleep in abandoned Iraqi houses and in the streets or in temporary posts snagged in war-riddled buildings or up on roofs or out in the desert. If they sleep at all.
A platoon will lug around a sat phone and pass it around when it is relatively quiet so the guys can check in at home and reassure their nerve-rattled families that, at least for right then in that breathless moment of time…they're okay.
I said hello again and waited again, and then said, "Dustin, I'm here honey. If you can hear me."
In response came the telltale death-rattle of the connection being cut, and I hung up immediately because if he can, he'll call back.
When the phone rang again I snatched it up and said, "Is it you?"
"Yeah," he said, and in that one instant, I knew something was terribly wrong because I'm his mama. Talk to me all you want about fatigue or overseas connections but I know.
I said, "It's 3 a.m. your time. Kinda late."
He said yeah, he just wanted to check in and let me know he was all right.
Dustin knew and I knew that his unit had lost three good Marines in three days.
I said, "I know it's been a real hard week. I don’t know if you knew any of the guys."
He said, "Yeah, I don’t want to talk about that right now. I just want to see how everybody's doing."
I dropped the subject immediately, because it is my job to do everything humanly and motherly possible in this universe to keep that boy going, to keep his spirits up, to make him laugh if I can, to reach through that telephone cord, reach across an ocean, reach across 6,000 miles and wrap my arms around him and hug him close and say, It's gonna be all right.
I said we were all fine, and this is what I would have said if we'd all been in the hospital in the ICU ward. I can only imagine the horrors my child has witnessed during the past few months. He does not need to be worrying about the health and safety of any of his loved ones back home.
Fortunately, I didn't have to lie this time like I did his last deployment to The Bad Place. I told him we were all doing well and told a couple of funny stories I'd saved for just this purpose, to prove my point and get him through the next miserable day in hell.
I told him he sounded exhausted, and he said, "I'm worn out and stressed out and I just want to get out of this place and come home."
I'm not going to give specifics on an Internet blog, but I will say he's been in a very bad place, and I will say that his unit is due to rotate home in the near future, but he still has several weeks where he must remain vigilant.
"I'm stressed-out too," I admitted (for the first time). "A friend of mine put it beautifully. She said, "The screws that hold me together are coming loose."
I laughed when I said it to keep the conversation light, and he said Yeah. He didn't laugh because he doesn't much any more, not now. I turned it into a joke and said, "If that makes you feel any better." He said, "It does, actually."
We talked of little things, everyday things, little sanities of home life that he hungers for, little touches of the real world and not the world of car bombs and IEDs and snipers and firefights and death and stench and heat and misery and homesickness.
I asked if he needed anything, if he'd gotten the care packages I'd sent recently. We talked of when we'd see one another again, and I knew the conversation was coming to a close because he has so little time, you see, because there are other miserable homesick Marines patiently waiting their turn.
And then I felt frantic and desperate and terrified because I don't know, I never know, if that is the last time I will ever hear his voice.
When you fear that you may not ever speak to your child again, you want to say just the right thing, and what is that?
How do you keep from being betrayed by the tears in your shaky voice? How do you be at least as brave as he is?
HOW?
His dad wasn't here, but I remembered things I had overheard him tell our son about the final days of combat. How it was easy to get distracted by thoughts of home and hearth, and get careless.
How you had to remain vigilant.
But his dad is a combat veteran and I am not. So I could not say it, but I could remind him of it just the same.
I said, "Of course, you know to remain vigilant. Please be very very careful honey."
"I will," he said.
And then I felt this urgency, this terrible urgency, to say, "Honey, you are never forgotten. Never ever for a single moment. You are in our thoughts and our prayers every moment of every day. We count the days until we can see you again. You aren't forgotten."
And he said, "Sometimes I forget myself."
"Please, please be careful," I said. "Hang in there. Just hang in there a little longer until you can be safe again."
We told each other how much we loved each other, and I fought valiantly to hide my tears, and when we said good-bye, I thought about how he refuses to hang up until I do. I've never said anything about it, but I've noticed it. Every conversation, no matter how brief. He waits for me to say good-bye.
And then you hang up and you sit alone in a silent house that once rang with his laughter and his noise, and your heart cracks open and there is nothing you can do but cry. Sob and sob because you don't have to be brave for him anymore.
When I'd gotten myself a bit under control, I called his dad and told him about the conversation. We agreed that something awful must have happened in the last few days, that he just called home for one brief moment of comfort, of hearing Mom's voice and news of home.
"I'm glad you were there for him," said my husband of 32 years.
The other night, I had a long and quite lovely conversation with the father of one of the young men in my son's unit. We'd met on a parent's forum. All I knew was that his child was in the same hell as mine, and that's all I needed to know.
But I was surprised to learn that he works in the field of psychology, and as a trained therapist, he said, "With all my training and all my education and all my experience, and all my kind well-meaning colleagues…I have absolutely no resources for coping with this."
We agreed that obsessive thoughts, insomnia, crying jags, and constant daily ongoing TERROR punctuated by spasms of panic and hysteria were NORMAL, actually.
Normal, that is, for the parent or loved one of a young man or woman in war.
Together, we fretted about how best to help them when they make those 3 a.m. phone calls; what's the best tone of voice; what to discuss and not to discuss; how best to be the most comforting and most supportive we can possibly be.
Like me, this particular gentleman did not want this particular war and does not share the politics of many of the most well-meaning "flag-wavers" as we call them--people who insist that we should support the war or it means we're not supporting the troops.
They don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Some of my readers accuse me of being filled with hatred or rage, but they don't get it and they don't get me.
When I see politicians use this war as a weapon of divisiveness in order to appeal to a narrow "base"--and I'm talking on both sides of the aisle--when I see politicians who have never dodged a bullet in their lives preen and preach in front of hoards of flags; when I see politicians who care much more about photo ops than about rolling up their sleeves and searching for the smartest solutions to this mess; when well-meaning patriotic souls accuse me of "undermining the troops"--souls who know nothing about the cards and letters and jokes and care packages and homemade cookies and phone calls and love to my son and others I know that I have sent countless times over there…and I look at the daily death toll mounting, and when, in my son's heavy voice, I hear the unimaginable weight of exhaustion and fear and the sheer stress of surviving when others didn't…
Well, all I can say is this.
Can you possibly understand the terror, all you who sit at home in your comfortable chairs and watch the evening news and shake your heads and go on the Internet and argue politics with me?
If you have not been there, if you have not spoken to your child and wondered if it is the last time you will ever hear his voice, then in matters of this war, shut up.
You are not qualified to speak.
posted by Deanie Mills at 7:00 PM
5 Comments:
Oh Deanie I rarely cry anymore. I am crying for them all. I am praying and begging for Dustins safe return. I know what you mean about the last things you say to your child. Did I say the right thing? Will I ever hear my sons voice again? I thank God mine is out of that HELL, but what kind of Hell is he in now because of it, or in spite of it?
My heart is with you Deanie!
Jamie
Thanks Deanie - I can't read the blogs every day. I read the parents group from my son's unit, because those are the people who, in spite of their flag waver or administration skeptic leanings in politics are there for their sons.
I talk to the people at my church, who don't understand, but have physical arms for hugs, and are doing what they can for smartest oucomes and peace.
The bumper sticker on my car says half my heart is in Iraq. There is a yellow ribbon and Peace is patriotic. I love "Love your freedom, thank a dissident" but I have to focus for now on thanking my son who said - Mom I have to go, I love my country, and if only the right wing wackos fight, I feel like I have abandoned by country to them.
Gail
Gail, I think your son is my new hero!
I just love that, "if only the right-wing wackos fight..." line. I'll have to tell Dustin.
So glad you dropped by. Come see me whenever you've got a few extra reading minutes.
Love and semper fi,
Deanie
Dustin has been in my prayers as well as all the other young Marines and soldiers there, and everywhere else. You are there as well Deanie. As one of the moms whose "screws came loose" and almost fell apart while the 3/7 was in Ramadi, I more than symphathize with your plight right now. Some of that pain that I felt then you could see in my blog, when I couldn't hold it in any longer. I respect you that you can get the pain out in a way that seems to make others aware of what we, as the mothers of young men in danger both physically and mentally, go through, and what our children go through. It isn't just a faceless war to us. It is a mindless conflict now that is taking the best of the best and we see it on a daily basis.
Please know that you and Dustin will remain in my prayers.
hugs
Tami aka Marine Mom
Tami, girlfriend, I appreciate so much your support and prayers.
If there wasn't an Internet for me to find this kind of support, I honestly do not know what I would do. There just aren't a whole lot of Marine Corps bases in the landlocked states, and though I have family who is Army, they're not infantry like Dustin.
In fact, I laugh whenever the parent's forum posts links to articles all about the nice facilities our guys have access to, but if you read on down to the end of the article, you see it's the Headquarters & Support bunch.
For a real picture of how the Marines are living in Ramadi right now, read Dexter Filkins' article from the Wed. July 5 New York Times, "Circling the Wagons in an Iraqi City." Since he's embedded with the guys, he can convincingly write about living without running water or electricity in 120 degree heat, getting hit so often by the enemy that you have to use smoke bombs to come and go from your post's entrance. I don't know how to post links on blogspot, but the address is www.NYTimes.com.
But you are so right. It seems like a minute ago that they made such a big deal about 2500 dead. Shoot, last month alone we lost 60 over there.
Real, real easy to blather about "staying the course" and "noble sacrifice" when you have never known the meaning of either phrase in your entire life.
Love and semper fi,
Deanie
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