Sending your child off to war

November 14, 2005
On this day I was proud and very scared to say the least. I always had the thought in the back of my mind that my son may be sent to war,but never my daughter. Two months prior to her departure the hurricanes hit Louisiana and caused the Army to evacuate all dependants off the post, at this time we took custody of my granddaughter and brought her back to South Carolina to live with us. I can only imagine how hard this was on her mother.
My daughter was an MP and her duties were to secure their FOB (foward operations base) train Iraqi police and to conduct operations in Baghdad. In her squad she was the gunner on her humvee. When on missions there were 3 other soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter.
One of the hardest parts was not having as much contact with her as I would like. We did get phone calls and had internet e-mails but it never seemed enough. Everyday there is a feeling of fear. It's the fear of the unknown, is she ok are her fellow soldiers ok, did something happen since the last phone call. It's standard operational procedure to shut down the phones and internet from the FOB when a soldier from the FOB is killed in action until the next of kin is notified. Normally 2 to 3 days. At these times you wonder who it is. The worst feeling is when you pray it's someone else's son or daughter. Not that you want someone else's family member killed, you just don't want it to be yours. For the duration of the tour these are daily feelings. One of the things that haunted me everyday was the drive home from work, when I would make the turn on to our block my body would quiver until I noticed there wasn't an army staff car parked in front of my house.
Our granddaughter was 2 months old when she came to stay with us. This was bitter sweet, we were happy to have her with us but not under these conditions. She was the driving force that allowed my wife and I to be able to endure this mess. There was something about waking up and seeing her smiling and be oblivious to the fact her mom was in such a violent place. Many times I would catch myself wondering, are we helping this child grow up to be someone who will fight in a future war. These are not normal feelings but they're real.
I have always been a strong person and didn't let my feelings show, but I got to a point where I would cry at the drop of a hat. It was very humbling and made me question weather I had shown my kids enough love, did they know how much I thought of them. This situation makes you evaluate your life and decisions you have made. It also made me realize what I put my parents through 35 years ago. I had to call my mother and apologize to her.
One of the worst days was in June of 2006, my daughter called and informed me her boyfriend was killed by an IED (improvise explosive device). She's thousands of miles away and I can't console her, instead I had to tell her "you can't grieve for him now, you have to wait till you get home." This may seem harsh to a lot of people, but you have to keep your head clear to react. Not doing so can cause your death or the death of others. It sucks, but it's reality. Things happen in an instant. One month to the day later, I received another call from her. They hit an IED, she was blown out of the turret and received shrapnel wounds in her neck and burns on her neck and face. She was ok, but this made it even clearer how these people wanted to kill her and the soldiers with her.
These people are cowards, they don't fight you face to face they hit and run. At least the vietcong would fight you face to face. Yes, they would ambush you but you knew they would stand and fight once they engaged you. So, there's another feeling anger and rage but who do you blame?
Here's one for anger, the only way to convince the Iraqi police to show up for training was to bribe them with weapons and ammo. It's their country and they don't want to help themselves ,it may be scary, but our troops are giving their lives to help them the least they can do is show up.
I'm going to stop for now, I'm getting to upset to concentrate. So let me close by saying I support all the men and women serving in Iraq and other theaters of war. You are an amazing group of people and the people of America should be proud you are here to keep them safe. I pray for all of you everyday.