If you can hack through the political posturing in this article, you can focus on the insanity that has gripped our society, where a 6' 6" hulk of a man can kiss his wife good-bye as she heads off to battle and turn around to go home to tackle the laundry. I know one cannot get caught up in stereotypes, but think for a minute on what we've done. This is the account of the soldier's sister-in-law, who is visiting:
Jim says it's good to keep a routine. The week of my visit, the holiday lights blink in the darkened Florida balm. Palm fronds brush against the plastic snowmen and wise men propped up in the cool night grass. At the kitchen table, my nieces dream up Christmas lists to e-mail to their mother, as if she will trudge out into the sands of Iraq and find a Wal-Mart.
Yes, I've lived that routine, and ticked off the months til my husband returned from the Mediterranean where he flew F-14's. One fights just to get up each morning and keep life on a normal keel. But when the mother's gone, the family's cultural stabiliser is also AWOL.
Jourdan is 10 and long-legged. My brother seems not to notice that she is wearing cocktail outfits to school. Jourdan is spending hours in front of the mirror, hypnotized by her own reflection as Hilary Duff and Kelly Clarkson channel messages to her at ear-shattering decibels.
Sure, many mothers stateside are sleeping at the switch, buying those same "cocktail outfits" and giggling over the makeup and jewelry on their pre-adolescent daughters. It's poor judgment, but this is different, in that the father is overwhelmed by his job and the household duties, and is leading a life of barely disciplined chaos and gratification -- doing anything to assuage the suffering and pass the months until mommy returns.
While the children are naturally concerned for her safety, the father has assured them that she will be fine.
When Angela received her orders for Iraq last spring, my brother boiled down the situation this way: "There are bad people over there trying to hurt Americans and Iraqis," he said. "Mommy has special gear that keeps her safe."
Now the article makes clear that she only joined up to get out of a food processing plant. She doesn't use "macho" language or even have strong feelings about the war effort. She's the classic professional, doing what she's paid to do and no doubt doing it admirably. No one will argue that women are second-class soldiers, but I will argue forever that 1. children need their mothers in their formative years, 2. the military cult requires an all-male force that can properly bond and live the mission, and 3. a man who allows his wife to go in harm's way while living a secure life is confused. Very confused. If he can't see that, someone else should have knocked it into him.
Since the war began I have read the U.S. casualty lists published in newspapers. When the photos of the dead are published in newspapers, I study the faces that are laid out like yearbook photos filling the pages of an endless year. Every picture has its own story but no future...When I see these photos, I imagine the knock on the door.
My brother never reads these lists. He never looks at the photos. Seeking out memorials is for those of us who live around the edges. Instead, Jim stands over his girls as they say their bedtime prayers, the same singsong prayers they have repeated since they could talk, about grandmas, papas, Todd their cat and baby Jesus, with one new addendum to their pajama pleadings. "Please keep Mama safe."
Angela was the one who could see the newly-applied make-up on her daughter in the photos they sent back and forth on the computer, which required her to express her concern. She also was the one to notice a lump on the child's forehead that needed to be checked by a pediatrician. She sees through a mother's eyes even from the other side of the world, but neither she nor her husband can see what women in combat is doing to the family.
Women don't belong in the military!
-MILITARY SPOUSE
Posted by: Amy Proctor | Sunday, 08 January 2006 at 11:17 PM