Off to War (14 page)

At least I know where my father is. My neighbors, they don't know where their dad is. He's with one of the branches of the army that doesn't tell anything, so he could be anywhere. I've seen Iraq on the news so at least I can picture Dad in my head, because I sort of know what it looks like around him, and that helps. But these kids, it's like their father just vanishes, and they can't picture anything. They can't ask him about it, either, when he comes home. Well, they can ask, but he can't tell them, so why would they bother?

I only have one close friend who is a military brat. I'm a little too weird for a lot of army kids. I act differently and I see
things differently. It's strange to be with regular kids, though, because they can live their lives without a clue about what's going on in the world. Some of them barely know who the president is, let alone that there's a war going on. So there's me, with my father far away and maybe getting shot at or dying for his country, and there's these regular kids who don't have a clue.

It's good to have non-military friends, though. It helps me feel normal. If all you had were army kids for friends, you could never forget about the world, and sometimes it's good to forget for a little while.

There are a lot of activities on the base for kids — got to keep those military brats busy! — but I'm not involved with any of them now. I'm more into theater. I'm in a play in Shelby this summer —
101 Dalmations
. We're rehearsing a lot right now because the performance is in just two weeks. It's a lot of fun, and takes my mind off things that are not so fun.

Before President Bush, I thought I'd just be an actor for my life's job. I get to be someone else on stage. It's really exhilarating to transform yourself. Awesome.

I'll still be an actor, and I'm going to try to get acting jobs while I'm still young so I'll have money to pay for college. I think I want to do more than that with my life, though.

I know for sure that I won't join the army. I'm going to join the peace corps instead, and try to balance out some of the bad stuff my country has done to the world with some good stuff. After the peace corps, I'll go to university and study psychology. Then after that, I want to be president of the United States.

This whole war was just for oil, and for money-grubbing Americans. George Bush lied about the weapons of mass destruction. It would be better in Iraq if the US was not there. Most of the suicide bombers are because of the US. We should just get out.

I've only met one Iraqi. He was a little bit older than me. He was a Fulbright scholar. I liked him.

The people who are protesting the war are showing their love for our country because when your country is doing something wrong, you have to raise your voice. I went to a protest earlier this year, at a park near the base. My grandmother took me. She doesn't like the war, either.

Mom tries to keep awful news away from me, but I really don't know why she does that. I watch the news. I know what the world is about.

Dad came home on leave for two weeks a few months ago. Oh, it was so great to see him! We did all sorts of things together — normal things, for us. We're both into Star Wars, and we like to roughhouse. And we go on these expeditions to the parks around the base. Normal stuff. Good stuff.

He seemed more mellow when he was home. He thought about things a lot more, and he'd be really careful. He'd do things like drive around potholes, where before he'd just bounce right through them. He kept saying how much he loved me and my mom.

I feel jealous of other kids, the ones who have never been away from their parents. They never have to worry if he's been injured or killed.

I know there are people in Dad's company who have been killed or wounded. So far, my dad's okay. Lots of soldiers make it home without any problems, so I think my dad will make it home, too.

At least we're able to stay in touch all the time, through the internet. Also, I've started an art business. I like to draw, and I have several customers who have bought my drawings. Dad bought some for people he knows in Iraq. I shipped them over there. I think he's proud of me that I can do things like that.

I'm not aware that Dad is involved in killing other people.
If he was, I'd still love him. I feel sorry for the soldiers who are made to do things like that. A lot of them don't want to go to Iraq but what can they do? If they refuse, they're marked AWOL, and they'll go to jail.

I get my strength from my dad and from my mom. My mom is really strong. She finds it hard when Dad's away, but she says that we'll get through it together. She's very smart, too, and she wants me to have a good mind, and use all my gifts. When I'm feeling really bad, I'll go to my mom, and I'll feel strong again. Drawing and my mom. Those are the things that keep me strong.

My advice for other military kids is, keep strong, and don't let anybody get you down.

Teenagers can react differently to their parents' deployment than their younger brothers and sisters. They may take great leaps forward while their parents are away — starting to date, learning to drive. Their parents might return to kids who are substantially different from the ones they left — kids who are used to running their own lives without having someone extra to answer to.

A growing recognition of the special needs of military teens has led to the development of resources aimed especially at them. Operation Purple Summer Camps have leadership programs. The Guard Family Youth (www.GuardFamilyYouth.org) runs a web-site with advice and opportunities. The Student2Student project of the Military Child Education Coalition helps link up students for peer support. In Canada, the Canadian Forces Connecting Youth website provides a way for military teens to connect and share experiences (www.connectingcfyouth.ca).

Patrick, Kevin and Collin's dad is a lieutenant colonel with the Pennsylvania National Guard. He has just begun his tour of duty in Iraq, stationed primarily in the Green Zone, a fortified area in the center of Baghdad nicknamed Little America.

Patrick
— My father has been in the Guard for twenty-one years. He's in Iraq now. It's the first time he's been overseas.

He's been gone for almost three months now. It will be another year before he comes home again. Unless the war ends before that.

I remember the day he told us he was going. He sat us all down in the living room. He was very excited, because he really wanted to go, and he knew he was going two weeks before he told us. So he sat us all down in the living room and set up a map of Iraq and took out his laser printer and said, “Guess what? This is where I'm going!”

Our reaction really took him by surprise because we all started to cry. Well, me and my brothers did. My mom tried hard not to, because she could see that Dad was so happy, and she wanted to be supportive of him. She didn't argue with him, or tell him not to go. But we did. Dad was shocked by that.

He really was excited about going, though, so after we got over the shock of it, we just accepted it. I think what got him most excited was that it's an opportunity to serve his country, and he's very big on that.

This is his first overseas mission, but he went away before, to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. His job was to keep the peace, because there were a lot of criminals and looters running around. So he was guarding things and keeping them safe. He didn't talk much about what he did there, but he took some pictures of things like a downed chopper, high water levels, mud in the streets, cars flipped over. It was pretty awful, but he was trained for it, and he did his job.

The day he left for Iraq, we drove him to the military base. A lot of soldiers were leaving at the same time, so there was a goodbye ceremony. The governor gave a speech, and so did a general and some guy from the air force. They talked about
what the families were going through and how important it was to support the troops. We stayed for all the speeches, then watched my dad get on a bus with the other soldiers, and we went home.

My father's job in Iraq is to help General Petraeus. He's the head of everything in Iraq. Dad works with the general in the public affairs office in the Green Zone in Baghdad. The Green Zone is a very protected place, with high, thick walls, lots of tanks and machine guns guarding it, and lots of barbed wire. Dad stays in the Green Zone all the time. They don't allow him to go outside it.

It's pretty nice in there, though. Dad's staying right by the river, and there are shops and palm trees and places to eat Chinese food. Saddam Hussein's palace is in the Green Zone, too, but it's used for offices and things now, because Saddam was hanged.

It's pretty safe inside the Zone, but sometimes missiles and bombs get in over the walls, and then there are explosions and everyone has to run for cover. Just after Dad got there, he had to get down on the ground and go under his desk because of a bomb or something exploding.

We get to talk to Dad a lot, almost every day, because he's kind of high up and important so he can use the phones to call us. He mostly asks us how we are doing because he's not allowed to tell us a lot about what he's doing. I think he would tell me if something bad happened, like a bomb, but he'd only tell me in general terms, not details. He wouldn't want us to get worried.

All this war comes out of 9/11. I was in the second or third grade and sitting in my classroom. No one told us what happened, but we knew something was up because parents started coming to the school to get their kids, and the day wasn't even half over yet. Over half of my class was taken out, and still the
teachers didn't tell us. It wasn't until I got home that I learned about the planes and people attacking us.

The terrorists — the Iraqis who are attacking us, all those things, 9/11 — happen because people are jealous of us, and because they're jealous that makes them not like us. They don't want the help we're offering them.

The United States is in Iraq to try to build a proper nation there, with laws and peace and a good government. It's a hard job because there are people in Iraq who don't want those things, and that's why they make trouble.

Having Dad gone is a big loss for our family because he's a really big factor in keeping our family going. It's not just that he mows the lawn and takes care of the house. He also kind of keeps us all together. It's not so much that we miss him doing things. We all help out now to do those things. We just miss him.

He misses out on us, too. It's my middle brother's first year of middle school, and he's missing that, and he'll miss being with us for birthdays, and Thanksgiving, and other important days.

We'll be together for Christmas, though. Dad's taking his two-week leave then, and we're all going to fly over to Germany to spend the holidays together.

Dad's been gone for about three months, and we're starting to get used to it, sort of. My brothers and I are coping all right. My youngest brother doesn't talk about it. He doesn't hardly even acknowledge a lot about it. He didn't cry or look sad, even though we knew he was. I was very sad. Every night before Dad left, and for weeks afterwards, I'd almost cry. But time has gone by and Dad's okay, so I don't worry about him as much.

Dad missed my birthday, but that didn't stop me from having fun. It wasn't the same without him there, but I knew he
was doing what was important to him to do, and me being unhappy wouldn't bring him back early. So I had a good day, even though I missed him. Last year, Dad took me waterskiing on my birthday, so this year was very different.

My grandparents are really angry that Dad's in Iraq. They're coping, but they're agitated. We spent time with them this summer, another thing we usually do with Dad. He's always the one to come up with great ideas about what to do with our time and how to have fun.

We're managing, though. We help Mom out with the chores, and our friends and neighbors have been really great. Once a week or so the neighbors cook a meal for us to give Mom a break, and they help her out by driving us to soccer and things.

I might join the military later on, if I can't be a NASCAR driver. I want some kind of job where I don't have to sit behind a desk all day, where I can be active. If I join the military, I want to be a soldier in the field, doing lots of different things.

A good thing about joining the military would be that everyone would recognize you as being someone who serves their country. They'd look up to you. Leaving your family would be a bad thing, that and having to move all the time.

Sometimes I see reports of protesters on the news, saying the war is bad and the president is bad. I try to put them out of my mind. We learned in school that during the Vietnam War there were protests, and the soldiers saw the protests, and that brought down their morale. Good morale is very important in a war. It makes the time pass quicker. If you're sad, it will affect your ability to do your job, and you might make a mistake, and that could lead to people getting killed.