Changing Views on the Military: Some Interesting Perspectives

Every night, I sing two songs to Gabrielle when I rock her to sleep. One is Jim Henson's wonderful "The Rainbow Connection" (this is a standing tradition ... it was a "special song" for both Emily and Ariel as well) and the other is a song I heard often as a child from my dad's Makem and Clancy album, Eric Bogle's "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda".  

Something about this song always resonated with me, I'm not sure why, and I certainly didn't know as a child that it was about war, specifically The Battle of Gallipoli in World War I. I just think it's a beautiful song that has a lullaby quality that seems to work well for The Gabs.

I am always looking for suggestions for writing pieces, and one of my best friends threw this one at me:

Maybe a piece about serving in the military now vs. our grandparents'/great grandparents'? Like how those serve view it and how those on the outside view it?

It hit me how the outlook on those who serve has changed so very much.

If my history teachers knew what they were talking about, those who served were lionized during World Wars I and II and even the conflict in Korea. It was only with the political polarization of the Vietnam debacle and the unnecessary deaths of so many for a war that could not be won, really, that the military got something of a bad name. Soldiers were spit on and yelled at and disrespected when they returned, and there is still so much ugliness and bad feelings on both sides, veterans and civilians alike.

I don't think it's any accident that Eric Bogle wrote an anti-war song about fallen and severely injured World War I veterans in 1971, when America was so divided in terms of the military. There was a pervasive feeling that everyone who fought in World War I and World War II was a hero because the reasons were clearly noble; it was different with Vietnam.

With the 9/11 terrorist attacks, though, suddenly members of the military were respected, admired, and given accolades for the sacrifices made. (I am well aware that I am skipping a lot of military conflicts here ... I was either a child or too caught up in acquiring Guess jeans and Banana Republic t-shirts to pay attention to the Cold War or the first Gulf War or anything else I'm leaving out...realizing that I have a lot of history to catch up on).

Some of my friends joined the military after 9/11. Emily's father was in the U.S. Army prior to 9/11, and even though we weren't on the best of terms at the time, I remember that he called me that day, and I remember his voice shaking as he wanted to make sure that Emily and I were okay.

My friend who suggested this piece is married to a military man. She texts and messages me on Facebook often when she is frustrated and angry and scared. I don't always know what to say, and I haven't been the best or most supportive friend to her the past year when she's needed it because I've had my own crap to deal with, but I am writing this piece for her.

When I asked for input on both my personal Facebook page and the page for this blog (please follow if you're not already ... it would make me very happy to get over 200 followers on Facebook), I got some interesting responses. I figured I'd share those (anonymously, of course) and open this up for conversation, either regarding the initial question that my friend asked or the feedback I got from others.

From a fairly recent high school graduate who is now serving:

Please don't write it solely based on the wives left behind - that's all I ask. It's like everything I read is about the wife and kids missing dad and husband - well there are a lot of females here with me, a lot of kids missing mom, and a lot of husbands feeling the same way while there wives are shipping out.. Just saying (-:

From the father of a former member of the military (who's now a cop ... clearly my friend's son likes to keep his father on his toes ;-):

There's no immediate support or community for parents of regular army soldiers. Their child is fighting half a world away and the Rear Detachment and Family Readiness Groups are at the base on the other side of the continent. There was a practice of never going to visit another family without calling first. If your soldier is KIA you get a visit from two members of the Rear Detachment and the first you know that they are coming is when you hear the car doors closing out in your driveway. You (I) go very, very still when a car door closes outside, walk to the window and then start breathing again.

From the wife of a former (I think) military man:

I thankfully didn't have children when my husband traveled so I didn't have to explain why he wasn't there every day, or move Christmas on the calendar or sleep in their beds when they woke up crying each night; but I heard all those stories. I do remember looking at the clock each night and if he got home even 5 minutes late I knew he'd be on a plane the next day. I remember dreading the phone ringing because it would be him saying he was being sent someplace else and wouldn't be home when he said he would. And yes, I had them show up at my door once, just once, because I let right into them after I picked myself up off the floor and could finally answer it (they had come from a 'function' and decided to just stop in and check on me!). I wanted to watch the news each night, but then hated every minute of it because maybe he was in that country or maybe he wasn't, it never helped because I didn't know where he was!!! Oh I could go on and on and he only traveled for three years!!

So this piece went in a different direction than I'd planned, but I think getting the different perspectives is very interesting and worthy of conversation.  Please comment, either in the blog comments or on Facebook.

And a special thank you to those of you who shared your thoughts so I could include them here.  I appreciate it more than you know.

And a special salute from me, a mother and wife and teacher, living free in New Hampshire because of you, to all who are serving, have served, or will serve.

A New Adult Talks Politics

As I've mentioned (briefly, because the very thought makes me break down in tears), Addie graduated from high school a couple of weeks ago.  My beautiful, brilliant daughter is leaving for college at the end of this summer; she has a boyfriend these days; she shows me pretty much every day how grown up she is getting (although she's not eighteen until September, so I still have a little bit of leverage ;-)).

Addie has always been a very cool person, and I say that not just as her mother.  She is funny and smart and thoughtful (she is also stubborn and moody and refuses to get a job, but those come up far less often).

Anyway, we were just hanging out in the living room the other day, and the next thing I knew, we were talking about politics.  Like, legitimately.  I'm not even sure how it came up.

We've talked in this basic direction before, some of the things that are on the news.  Addie's contributions are usually question-laced (which is good) and connected to personal experiences (which is probably better).

*  Why aren't ___________ and _____________ (we know and love a lot of same-sex couples) allowed to get married?  That's just stupid.  They love each other and have been together for longer than a lot of people.  Why should selective reading from the Bible supersede the main lesson of love, that none of us are without sin, that it's up to God (if you believe in Him) to make the final call after you are dead?  ______________ and __________________ are good people that love everybody and give so much to society, while so many "married Christian couples" do horrible things all the time.  Also, it's a true statistic that many more heterosexuals than homosexuals cheat on their significant others and are pedophiles.  If God is going to let people into heaven based on their sex lives, I don't think I want to go there.

*  It's really ironic how politicians will go on and on about how wrong abortion is, yet when it comes time to foot the bill for these babies that nobody really wanted, they're perfectly okay with letting them live in poverty with no real shot at ever getting out.  Mothers who beat the crap out of kids they were guilt-tripped into having by some pro-life group that disappeared pretty quickly from the picture are not held accountable because budget cuts have taken the teeth out of the Division of Children, Youth, and Family.  There was a girl at school whose father was molesting her and, when they showed up to ask him about it, he said it was a lie and wouldn't let them into the house, and there was absolutely nothing they could do ... because it interfered with his "civil rights".  Crazy!

*  Why do some people still think that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11?  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that Hussein and Osama bin Laden hated each other based on the type of Muslim each was ... why are people too stupid to pick up a book?  And why did the government lie about the whole "weapons of mass destruction ... Iraq is an immediate threat" thing?  Was it really as simple as George W. Bush wanting to take out Saddam Hussein for his father?  There are other countries that pose far more of a threat to the USA than Iraq, so why?

*  And of course we've had multiple conversations about the desperate need for welfare reform.

The other day, she asked me my thoughts on immigration.

I was really honest with her (I do try to keep my opinions on things to a minimum as I'd rather she draw her own conclusions).  "Immigration," I said, "is a tough one."

I told her my basic concern, namely that it's a good thing for our family that immigration was an accepted practice a couple hundred years ago, because otherwise I'd probably be digging up potatoes in Ireland.  I mean, realistically speaking, there were Native Americans already here in the United States when what could be defined as "immigrants" first arrived.  Is it fair to say, "Whoa, okay, immigration was good for awhile, but now we're cutting it off.  Done."?

She started telling me about some of her friends from other countries (this was the adult part of the conversation) that have never understood immigration.  To them, it is completely wrong and strange and different to allow others any fair chance to assimilate into their culture and part of the world and so on.  "But that's not why people in America are against immigration," she noted.

It was very cool.  We talked about how part of our laissez-faire attitude about immigration and our lack of understanding about why people like Texas and Arizona are so fired up about it is likely because we live in the northeast, where it's definitely not the problem it is in other parts of the country.

We also agreed on kind of a cool immigration policy.  Basically, anyone should be able to enter the United States and be given five years to become a contributing member of society (or at least show progress in that direction).  Five years should be plenty of time to demonstrate that, and the knowledge of such a degree of regulation would give immigrants an incentive to work hard and follow American laws and so on.

We got laughing and said that clearly there has to be some pretty strong arguments against that policy because otherwise it would be in place.

Anyway, I try to keep politics out of this blog, but this really isn't intended to be about politics.  It is instead meant as a testament to how wonderful it is to have intelligent, evidence-based discourse on important issues of our time with my daughter who, not too long ago, was more concerned with whether her jeans should be from Hollister or Abercrombie.

My process when getting into discussions that could potentially become heated is to always listen to what others are saying.  Even if I completely disagree with them, listening to why they have a certain opinion is often quite a learning experience.

That Addie has joined those ranks, that she can make me think and learn and grow, just emphasizes her status as a new adult ... and that makes me incredibly happy and proud.

Stephen King Takes on 9/11 with "The Things They Left Behind"

Great thinkers address the topics of their thoughts in various ways. Bestselling author Stephen King, for example, possesses one of the world's most brilliant minds, in my opinion. However, he doesn't say, "Here's what I think about ..." Instead, he incorporates it into his literature.

His short story "The Things They Left Behind" is King on 9/11.

Scott Staley, an insurance executive, was one of the lucky ones that heard the random warning voice in his head the morning of 9/11/01 that kept him from being in his office on the 110th floor of the World Trade Center. Like all New Yorkers--no, like all Americans--Scott is still reeling from that tragedy a year later when objects belonging to some of his former co-workers suddenly show up in his apartment. Repeatedly. And most frightening of all, each object--the whoopee cushion, the conch shell, the Lucite box with a penny in it--has a story to tell.

Like the Kennedy assassination, 9/11 impacted every single solitary American. In one morning, a beautiful flawless Tuesday morning with that perfect blue sky that bridges summer and fall, the world changed. 9/11 and its repercussions have, for seven years now, belonged to politicians and pundits. Part of me wants to write about how the right wing bastardized the concept of patriotism through this national tragedy, twisting it to suit its own purposes, but I'm still shaken enough by that terrible Tuesday when I was in my second week of internship for my career that I don't feel on firm enough ground to point fingers. There is enough hate in the world. Anyway, wouldn't I be doing much the same thing if I started that line of writing?

All of which leads me to why Stephen King is now, more than ever, my greatest hero ever in the world.

King was very honest about his difficulty in writing about the Vietnam experience in Hearts in Atlantis. He felt very strongly that his generation had been desecrated by both the war, the reaction to the war, and the reaction to the reaction to the war. Vietnam had been over for almost thirty years before King was able to incorporate it into his literature, and even then he was publicly uneasy with it.

With "The Things They Left Behind", King pulls no punches. He creates a character that was one of the many who chose to jump from the towers; he gave her a name, Sonja D'Amico, and a personality. The image of an executive, crying with his hair on fire knowing full well that he was going to die and wanting nothing more than to mow his lawn one last time. Victims that did things like blow conch shells Lord of the Flies fashion shirtless at a company event. Even something of a musical soundtrack; Lou Vega's "Mambo No. 5" was burning up the airwaves that summer.

What I liked best, and what critics probably like least, is that King allowed Scott to make some restitution. He was able to give both the actual victims and their families, a different sort of victim but not any less devastated, some degree of closure, maybe a little bit of peace.

I am reminded of the last words in "The Mist" (the novella, not the movie ... I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch that yet) ... "The first word was Hartford. The other was hope."