Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan War’

I know he is away in a war zone. And I truly don’t expect him to find a way to call with his cellphone every weekend. But a weekend when the phone does not ring, and no email arrives, and he is not shown “up” online at all, and the news reports seven US military killed…..well, that is the sort of weekend that makes silence fall around your heart.

A silence and darkness full of monsters worthy of a child’s night time closet.

On the weekends, with luck, I get the opportunity to chat live online with my son in Afghanistan. He is fortunate in some ways, he is in a place that is not seeing humvees come back splattered with blood and body parts. But that is unfortunate in some ways, too. Because all he is seeing is the excitement and emotion of the guys driving out on patrol.

Last week, the convoy of a Coalition nation was hit when an IED explosion stopped it and an apparent ambush ensued….very near to the location of my militarily excitable boy. But he didn’t see it. It all still looks like GI Joe to him.

When he joined the Army a couple years back, we knew the day would come when he would go to the war zone. His older brother, already medically discharged and partially disabled (tho’ still waiting on a rating of that from the VA), advised him to get into his same line of work: transport. And he did. He went to the same stateside base for a while and did a stint in Korea.

Now, sitting restlessly in charge of loading trucks and setting up routes of supply movement, watching the guys go out on patrol and come back alright, he wants to apply for infantry school. So he can be the guy to go out on patrol. No amount of telling him every military job applies towards the mission changes his mind. His father and brother telling him being an “11-bullet stopper” is not the best idea did no good. I even invoked his dad’s service with Special Forces and the lure of Airborne life to no effect. I asked him, why, if he felt a need to do more, why he couldn’t consider becoming a linguist (which both his father and I were in the Army) and he discounted translator duty, too.

He is in the grip of emotion. So are we. But entirely different emotions.

I’m not the only one who sends guitars to Afghanistan. My son is awaiting his personal guitar, and two of his friends have signed up on the list of
Guitars 4 Troops.

Pass the word, any morale booster helps!

Yeah, I cannot stop posting today. It is the effect of a few hours of sleep, I suppose: this is the third or fourth post TODAY alone!

Afghanistan announced that their Army had the target number of recruits this month. Yay! Pass them the ammo and pack the hell up and go, right?

No, this is not merely (or at least not only) my knee jerk reaction to get my own son home and the hell out of there. But see, the way I get to wondering what the hell we need to be there for is this: remember the Soviets? They were kicking Afghan ass back in the bad old Commie days.

Strictly from a bitchy historian standpoint, it might have been good of us to sit back and see if they could have been the first Army since Tamerlane’s to successfully stomp Afghanistan into compliance! Goodness knows, they were similarly brutal bastards. And that plus the fear of domino toppling led Charlie Wilson to see to it that American money and weapons flowed like milk and honey. Exit the Russians, stage north.

So, why is it, if Afghans armed and supplied by the USA could kick out the freaking Soviet Army, can’t they kick Taliban ass all on their own?
So far, none of their generals seem to be whiny asses like the Iraqis have to deal with presently.

Blood economics, perhaps? Anyone would rather watch America bleed than do it for themselves. And hey, wasn’t SELF-determination an ideal of democracy once upon a time back when dinosaurs stomped around? Or is that my flaking memory alone?

At last, the back door draft is slated to END. I think this process of keeping soldiers past their normal tour and repeated deployments not only kept the American public from realizing how over-stretched our military forces have been, but increased suicides among service members.

Stop loss even made fairly liberal folks like me wonder about the wisdom of a volunteer military in time of war. And the repeat deployments of the same troops over and over again will not be ended by stop loss. A volunteer force is, in a way, a non-egalitarian representation of the country: people at the bottom of the economic pile join the military and the privileged classes avoid service altogether.

Having grown up during Viet Nam (and served in the Army at the very tail end of it), being married to a Viet Nam vet, I never thought I’d say the words: I think during wartime, a draft is a better idea. It is the only way to get enough troops to not wear the volunteers completely down and OUT. And it is the only way to make sure it is more than poor boys dying for the causes that can be enriching the bastards at the top of the heap. Anyone who thinks ending stop-loss means all is well in the world with a war going on ten years old has simply been drinking the kool-aid too long.

So, yes, I am glad stop loss is being killed. But no, that in and of itself does not mean our troops are totally better off. If only every time a war began we could make the sons and daughters of Congress be the first to deploy!

Life is an emotional roller coaster for parents with sons and daughters away in the war zone. Soon the wife of my eldest son’s best friend will deploy as well. She leaves two very young children with her husband; and if he deploys as well, as happened last time, the grandparents will take the kids. I wonder how they coped—-looking at their grandchildren as both their son and daughter-in-law went to Afghanistan, wondering if they’d be orphaned. I was scandalized that the military would blissfully send parents to the same war zone, not caring if they orphaned kids young enough to not even remember parents.

Apparently, children don’t vote and can’t scream at Congress like mothers demanding a last son home safe. But this time, thus far, the husband will be stateside while his wife goes away. My heart clenches for them both, as I know he would rather be with her to try to keep her safe.

On the worst days of my week, I get out of bed and go to my altar while coffee water comes to a boil. And my youngest son’s candle is out—victim of some passing breeze. I whack my inner superstitious ninny and re-light the beeswax pillar. On the best mornings, I open my mailbox and find an email from my distant son—-and know that at least today I don’t need fear a doorbell ringing.

And the best days of all, are those where I can see his name live on the computer screen—when he is online checking mail himself…twelve hours of round the world different from me. He can’t always see my instant message to respond. (It is like Solstice morning when he DOES answer!) But I know he is there and well….momentarily mere time zones distant.

And I can exhale.

And sadly so, for the Newlove family. His body has been found. My sincerest sympathy to his family in Renton. That uniformed trio will be back at the door with worse news, flags and funeral ahead, alas.

Every family with an active duty member must dread the idea of opening the door to a uniformed trio. And the family of Petty Officer 3 Newlove is no exception. My heart goes out to his parents, it has to freeze them to the marrow to have seen them there. They were not being notified of their son’s death, but of his capture by Taliban forces. Now, they wait in what can only be the most intense parental dread, for his rescue or release.

I admit, since my own son went to Afghanistan, many times in my going about the morning in my robe and with hair uncombed, I suddenly think of how unready I would be in more than mere appearances for such a visitation. And because I am one of those ninnies who needs to rehearse things in my head when I know it will be difficult (not to mention wholly untenable), I have tried to imagine how to keep control of myself if I ever have to look up through my door windows and see that uniformed trio reaching for the doorbell.

My mind won’t go there. The closest it comes is seeing myself turning away from the door and running for the back door instead—as if I could outrun the news such representatives could be carrying. I imagine fleeing to the very heart of the Labyrinth, as if there, in that zone of peculiar peace, I might be able to absorb the blow better.

Pray for us, magic for us, join our hearts—captives of war as surely as Jarod Newlove—we parents, waiting again for the delivery of our child.

So, the next chapter of the Wikileaks saga begins: a young Army private has been arrested. Private First Class Bradley Manning is in very deep shit for someone so young and junior in rank. I find it fascinating that it is such a junior man and he acquired access to all the documents that make our war effort in Afghanistan look like a badly cobbled together goat fuck. But I admit to a tiny perverse bit of pride that he was an intelligence analyst just as I once was in the Army. Apparently, he thought the American people had a “need to know” the true history of the war.

I have to wonder whether the military and the government is more pissed that he leaked the data, none of which was above “Secret” in classification; or that he got into their super special secret network (easy to do with his clearance):

“…..Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, which essentially provides military members who have appropriate security clearances access to classified e-mails and the military’s classified internet system. But the official emphasized passwords and other control measures such as physical access are needed to log onto specific systems that provide information classified at the highest levels.”

And yes, there is already all the requisite screaming that his act was treason and he should be shot, yadda-yadda-yadda. If that is how it works in a Glen Beckistanian US, then why wasn’t someone from the White House dragged to the lawn and dispatched after outting a CIA agent?

None of the data leaked was newer than eight months ago, and as others have said, military data that old is practically archaic. Also, for the White House to be acting all shocked and awe-fully disappointed is bullshit: the newspapers have been consulting PRIOR to publication all along the way! Names of sensitive individuals have not been published.

Yes, this young private violated military law. I am sure he will be punished. I suspect he simply had a belly-ful of lies and bullshit and double-speak. I feel rather sorry for him on several counts; but I do think he showed courage. He will bear the brunt of the system that was invested in covering screw-ups, lies, and dubious reasoning that has been costing American lives and plenty of tax dollars, as well.

I will doubtless be contributing to his defense fund. And if you are thinking of commenting to yammer on about how he should be shot? Save your typing fingers, I’ve heard it. It has become perfectly obvious that nobody with more rank and experience, military or civilian, has the balls to tell the truth about this war and do anything to REALLY end it. It took a foolish young idealist to begin the process.

Light a candle, say a prayer….whatever you do, even if it is only to curse angrily, give a thought to prisoners taken by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Last week, the Taliban announced it had taken two Americans who apparently wandered off their compound in Afghanistan. The two Navy men were missing since Friday, but yesterday, for the family of Navy non-commissioned officer Justin McNeley, the suspense ended: his body was found.

The Taliban says they killed him in a firefight and captured his comrade, also a Navy man. The Navy identifies the second man as PO3 Jarod Newlove, of Renton, Washington. He is now listed as DUSTWUN (duty station & whereabouts unknown), as the military searches for him.

Petty Officer Newlove joins Army Spc. Bowe Bergdahl on the very short list of Americans held prisoner. Spc. Bergdahl disappeared last summer. Now, two families have even more than the usual amount of horror and worry to endure.