Stars and Wars

I am an Air Force brat and proud of it. My father served three tours in Viet Nam. He died in active service when I was 17 in a KC-135 outside of Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Alpena, Michigan. My 15-year old brother became a man overnight and my 12-year old sister squeezed her dog so hard, he cried, too. They were alone when they got the news they had no dad.

We've all grown past it and my mother has been with her current husband longer than he was with our dad. How we grew past it is something we rarely share. I was with my mother, my siblings were not. The death of the main breadwinner meant we were given two weeks to move out of military housing. It also meant we were no longer members of an exclusive community that was supposed to take care of its own. I think I have been pursuing that sense of community since.

In 1968, we were stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. I was almost 10 years old and very confused about why so many people were protesting about guys like my dad who were just doing their job. He didn't have a choice about going to Viet Nam. It was what he did, what his friends did and to question orders was out of the question. Then the National Guard shot those college kids just up the road at Kent State. Sure didn't seem like the Summer of Love after that. Especially when the police beat up those other kids in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention.

So when Dad came home, I asked him about all that stuff and what war was really like. He told me I was too young to understand and that he was just doing his job. We left it at that. But I still confused about why all those people were so mad at him. He was a pilot but he didn't drop bombs on anybody. Only refueled the planes that did. He never told us he was in any danger but I suspect he wasn't real happy about going in the first place.

So we grew up, he died, and America had it pretty peaceful for awhile. Then some crazy guys from a country that hates us flew into a building and our world changed. This time, America sent its men and women to war. And families suffer again. I feel their pain, I lived their pain. They and their loved ones who are serving deserve every bit of support we can give them. We cannot give them less. The families serve, too, just like we did. They have questions. They have doubts. We did, too.

No one likes war, no one wants war, not now, not then, not ever. To focus on the suffering of this generation of soldiers and families takes away from those of us who suffered before. The media would have us believe that this generation of war families deserves special attention and consideration. In 1967, all the dads were gone so my mother and our friends banded together on the frozen prairie of Montana. They worried about how to cut a Thanksgiving turkey and whose husband wasn't going to come back. Mom was advised to keep a snow shovel in the house so she could shovel us out of the 13' snowdrift that pressed against the door so hard it wouldn't open.

Generations span the countless lost first steps, first words and first teeth. There was no reason to remind my dad of all the missed birthdays, recitals and baseball games. Where was the country's caring, consideration and media then? There were no men to do the stuff that dads do. We had only the solace of learning that we could do it all without them. And our moms did do it, with little whining, little rancor, and lots of hugs, tears, laughter, martinis and mah johngg.

As kids, we did it because we didn't know anything else. A few times, I heard Mom grumble because we "got orders" and the entire household had to be somewhere else, across the continent or across the ocean, in two weeks. To us, it was an adventure and we learned to live lean. Eight elementary schools in six years, three junior highs and three high schools in six years. It was all part of a life into which we were born. We made friends because we needed to and lost 'em because we had to move on. Sometimes they followed us around the world, sometimes we followed them.

Back then, John Lennon asked use to give peace a chance; now Toby Keith wants to put a boot in someone's ass. Returning from the deadly jungles of Viet Nam, a soldier in uniform had reason to fear for his life in his own country. He was spit on, beat up, called a baby raper and murderer. Though the face of war has changed, we still worry and wonder when they will come home. Lesson learned though, we do not revile them though for their heroic voluntary service.

Back then, Mr. Cronkite showed us footage of black body bags and bleeding men taken away by fragile helicopters. Now the government has decided that photographs of endless rows of pine boxes holding the remains of our loved ones are too sensitive and too personal. I say show us and let us cry for their loss. We need to make each precious box personal and keep it personal until they come home.

To those of you who are not members of that exclusive band of men and women who have served in the armed forces, you must support, respect and honor those who have gone to war, those who are at war, and those who will go to war. To those of you with loved ones serving in this war, remember that you have a duty to stand proud and steadfast, regardless of whether your husband, wife, daughter, son, cousin, niece or nephew comes home in a uniform or a box. You are not the first to suffer, nor will you be the last. But you can be the best. The best at remembering, and the best at teaching us how to live as members of that able-bodied, exclusive group . . . the American military family.