Knee Deep in the Hooah!

We are fast approaching the one year anniversary of Mike’s deployment.

One year.

One very long, tiring and scary year.

He turned 22-years old the day they landed in Kuwait. I remember the picture he sent me through e-mail of him sitting at a picnic table drinking a very nasty looking near-beer in celebration. A lot happens in a year. I think we have both aged far more than 365 days though — and I am sure he aged more than I did. We have lost time together that can never be replaced, and we have lost some common ground. My son is now among that highly respected group of Americans known as Combat Veterans.

Even though I know he has grown and changed during this time, he will come home and look about the same to me, undoubtedly. There are a few facial expressions that he will have for the rest of his life that will always make him familiar to me. All of my older kids have a few (and Emma is developing hers with flare). It’s a raised eye brown, a crooked smile, a tilt of the head… some signature physical form of expression that takes my breath away for a quick second. When I see it I am immediately transported back in time and can see the small face of a child who is either in trouble or is thinking of a way to get out of trouble. Nothing bad, but maybe a cookie that has been snatched or a dish that was broken from careless play after being told not to. Those little things never fade, and those are the treasures that mothers bury deepest in their hearts. It’s a treasure that doesn’t seem to fade — at least not in this stage of life.

I don’t know what the years of war do to a military mom’s memories. It does alter them to some degree. The memories are so entangled with fears and pride. It’s all so surreal because the memories are a little fragmented between the contact you have with your soldier, and the news you hear on the home front. It is all intertwined with a stew of mixed emotions that slowly churn over the course of time.

War has taken so much from so many people. For some it has taken someone they love dearly away from them. They will not behold that face again on this earth. I am grateful that I have not had to walk that path, and I pray for those who have. Some mothers will embrace a son or daughter coming home who has been so badly wounded that she will once again take upon herself the duties of a mother, and probably most will do it with a willingness and a magnificent grace that would put Florence Nightingale to shame.

And, yet, in that light of sacrifice, I still support the efforts in Iraq (as I always have) because I see the larger picture. I can not succumb to infantile thinking that allows people in protest to spout off that wars only happen because we have weapons. That’s the most preposterous, sophomoric, over-simplification of the human condition that I have ever heard. Anyone who believes that still believes in dragons and faeries. The sad part is those who hold this childish non-sense up as truth also choose to act worse than spoiled children toward those who have seen the realities of war - those who do not believe in the dragons and faeries of childhood, and who have “seen the elephant” in their manhood. Berkeley is a shining example of infantile mental and emotional regression.

I am truly more worried now than I have been in the past about the climate in this Country and the escalating hate that is being poured forth from the anti-military and anti-war crowd. We have heard recently about domestic-terrorists (let’s be honest … remember in Rules of Engagement the importance of properly identifying your enemy… ) bombing recruiting centers, praising the bombing of recruiting centers, harassing Marines and speaking of them as if they are second class citizens, threats being made toward those who want to shield our Citizen Soldiers, and protests that have turned into a blatant display of disregard for the laws of the land (and lawmakers who let it happen!). Can you see why a mother, a wife, a family, or anyone who loves a returning Veteran would have cause for concern? Just as our soldiers have sworn to “support and defend” so have we promised ourselves to do the same for them.

I am waiting. I am anticipating the moment when I know his boots are here on American soil. It’s a thought that can instantly put a smile on my face, and suddenly for a moment I feel like the richest woman whose ever lived.

Tags: Army, Army Mom Posts, Army Wife Posts, Morale, Shack Pack news, Troop Surge, anti-military, combat, deployment, family life, military, politics, redeployment, reunification, updates, veterans, war on terror, worry //