The phone rang at 2:30 early Thursday morning. As I stumbled down the hallway, the answering machine picked up, and my daughter’s voice trembled.
" I just got a text message from my husband, and he’s not coming home in March after all. His unit has been extended until July."
Then the sobbing began.
The phone rang at 2:30 early Thursday morning. As I stumbled down the hallway, the answering machine picked up, and my daughter’s voice trembled.
" I just got a text message from my husband, and he’s not coming home in March after all. His unit has been extended until July."
Then the sobbing began.
For weeks, my daughter and my son-in-law had been hanging on to the hope that he would soon be home from the war. Home for his son’s first birthday, to see his likeness take those first halting, joyful steps.
Home with his young wife, with whom he has spent exactly 23 days since they wed.
Home from a war where he and his unit have performed heroically and admirably. A war in which some of his immediate peers have had their youthful promise extinguished in an instant.
My daughter has been heroic in her own right, finishing her degree program and a related internship, seeking a job, and raising their son alone. My wife and I help whenever we can, but it’s not the same as having them all together as a family, pursuing their own dreams and goals. This arrangement is unnatural, at best.
Part of the President’s escalation of the war involves extending the tour of duty of some 2600 members of the Minnesota National Guard, who have been away from home since October of 2005, save for two weeks that December and for individual leaves.
And now, by the time they arrive back in the States and are debriefed, nearly two years will have passed since they departed for duty.
These soldiers were expecting to come home this spring. Their communities have been readying themselves to come alongside these soldiers and their families, taking part in reintegration planning. Their employers have been planning for the return of their hero workers. Mothers, fathers, brides and children have been counting down the days until their sons, daughters, spouses and parents step back over the threshold. Home, at last.
But those plans were torn asunder by a heartless, failed President reenacting a heartless, failed policy, which flies in the face of an electorate that soundly repudiated his conduct of the war.
Given the choice of engaging all the stakeholders of the region in a solution, a miserable excuse of a Commander in Chief could summon no more imagination than to continue doing the same thing again, expecting different results, with no real reason to believe this time will be different.
That is not just a failure of imagination, but of reason and restraint. It is not just folly, but the wishful delusions of a madman.
Meanwhile, our Guard families continue their separations, wondering if they can continue to hold things together on the homefront. They worry that their soldiers might be at greater risk because of this extension of duty and the expected reaction of the insurgency to this ill-advised escalation.
And they wonder if their soldier will come home, not in youthful vigor, but in a box, their lifeless eyes dulled by both insurgency, and presidential insanity.
And our citizen heroes worry about their loved ones back home, trying mightily to stay alive long enough to gaze again into their loved one's eyes. They long for the day they can play with their children. They wait for the chance of a normal life again.
But that day of days, the goal that keeps them going in the face of all their life and death trials, which days ago seemed within reach, is once again, so very far away.
Godspeed, heroes.
UPDATE: First, to all who have read and/or recommended this diary, I am humbled by your response.
Please keep in mind that this is one family, and that similar scenarios played out in inumerable households in Minnesota and the other states where the Guard has been extended. Your compassion for my daughter and son-in-law is so overwhelming, and I want to thank you all for standing beside them in this hour.
There are a couple comments worth noting, among the current 238 as of this writing. First, it requires little imagination to see Mr. Bush using this "small" escalation as part of a master plan to go to war with Iran, as several have suggested. The fact they are now actively seeking Iranian insurgency cells within Iraq speaks to the "logical" next step, that of fighting them "there" (Iran) so we don't have to fight them "here" (Iraq).
The only thing this President understands is conflict. I now believe he will not be satisfied until he kills millions of souls. Forget Pol Pot, or Hitler, or Saddam himself. This man, who is consuming air someone else could be breathing, aspires to top them all. He is truly delusional, and a menace to this country, and the world.
Second, others have recommended this diary be sent to your Representatives and Senators. I think this is well and good. Not because my ego demands it, but because our country demands it. Our troops deserve to have their family stories told, and that pain known, by everyone who holds an election certificate. From township boards and City Councils, to the highest levels of State and Federal Governments, all these stories need telling, for our heroes' sake.
Finally, politics be damned. It is time for persons from all sides of the aisle to examine the actions of this administration not from the viewpoint of political considerations, but through the framework of our Constitution. If they are brutally honest with themselves, they can reach no conclusion other than the necessity to pursue the impeachment of the President and Vice President. Our country may not survive without such drastic action.
On a personal note, my daughter is an amazing woman, wife and mother. She finds great solace in Christ, and is a shining example to me. I'm not so certain I can get to the good place she is in anytime soon, but she makes me want to seek His comfort and grace. To myself and our families, she is a hero without uniform.
To those of you who shared your pain and losses, my condolences to you in your time of need. I pray you will find healing and peace in the arms of your Higher Power, and that you feel, as we have, the tender embrace of this community as well.
Godspeed, all.