Chapter+2



Muddy Little Kids Over Seas

The distance wasn’t talked about, it just lingered. After a good ¾ of a year, praying for the muddy little kids over seas was mechanical, painful. Parents bathe, teach, and love their kids as much as they feel will better their lives. They’re never prepared themselves for the future their children bring, never ready for the sound of packing bags and helicopter blades taking them away from home with a wave and a glance away.

We think that now the reality of war affects us that it loses all its dreadful shots and blows. Combat boots, camouflage, guns, bullets, not these children. They were simply off at camp and forgot to write. That room, there, down the hall, is still pink with an unmade bed and scent of play perfume-that’s all there…right?

No, this wasn’t summer camp and that room really was…empty.

She knew her unit since childhood, yes, there was plenty of training, yes, and I’m proud, yes. My baby is still getting shot at, and after so long the shock is still there. It never goes away.

Out, down the driveway, in my blue minivan that’s seen better days. I’ll distract myself. This large Texan town, sprinkled in red, white, and blue was always moving. Smile here, smile there. National anthem every few blocks. Every day, just like this. A town draped in patriotism. Sunday came, once more. “America, America, God shed his grace on thee…” How appropriate, in church we’ll pray profusely for our youth, my child, in the unit over seas. I tuned this out, I knew my hopes were with them and God just the same, but this wasn’t how I pictured my child once she grew up.

“I’m going to California to school, isn’t that exciting Mama?” She would say.

“I’m proud of you; dear; now go do your homework.”

It was a sincere answer, but her marching off wasn’t what should have happened. Maybe I would’ve hugged her. Now, she was off overseas and that college dream would wait. I couldn’t hug her over those miles, just my thoughts could.

The drive home was quiet, by choice, to avoid the blaring anthem yet again. I’d relax, sit and read the paper. My leather sofa called to me.


 * Bombs Kill at Least 85 in Kirkuk**

The kind of thing that stops a heart.

“Unit 196 bombed, no survivors.”

Should a mother need to see the day their own child dies? What a rhetorical question. Time stopped. My throat closed. I aught to die to see her, that was the first thought that came to me. I knew that there were 6 children that ran up and down this very street lost in that bombing. It wasn’t real; this was a fluke, a lie.

I ran out the door, the town seemed so close to the house, all ten blocks of it passed in what seemed like a moment. All of the images of war that came to mind, was it like Hiroshima? Or more like the Saving Private Ryan? I wasn’t sure, but the little face of my daughter at age four popped into my head, squirt guns were the big hit at the time. No, this was a lie.

Not once did I hear the blaring anthem. I didn’t hear the cars, I didn’t hear the whistling of the wind across the empty bottles hung in front of the liquor shop; I stopped.

His hand was pretty chilled, he was silent, I stood next to the father of my daughter’s friend’s father. He knew, he felt it too. His son was in the same unit, not more than a week ago we talked about the singing of the anthem once they returned, overplayed we thought.

A day later, the coffins arrived. I didn’t come to see the grand entrance of the flags and gun shots in salute, I came to see my baby girl be buried beside five others. That night, my life was over and silence overcame my home. With the flag above my fireplace, all neat in its triangular fold. I fell asleep to live a life of an antiwar woman.

The patriotism ended.


 * By Aly Nunez**