December 11, 2004
Mother's view of the war: Battle fatigue on the home front
By: Teri Wills Allison
This was published in the 11/21/04 San Francisco Chronicle.
I am not a pacifist. I am a mother. By nature, the two are incompatible, for even a cottontail rabbit will fight to protect her young.
Violent action may be necessary in defense of one's family or home, and that definition of home can easily be extended to community and beyond, but violence, no matter how warranted, always takes a heavy toll.
Violence taken to the extreme -- war -- exacts the most extreme costs. There may be a just war, but there is no such thing as a good war. And the burdens of an unjust war are insufferable.
I know something about the costs of an unjust war, for my son, Nick, an Army infantryman, is fighting one in Iraq. I don't speak for him. I couldn't even if I wanted to, for all I hear through the mom filter is "I'm fine, Mom, don't worry. I'm fine. Everything is fine, fine, fine. We're fine, just fine. '' But I can tell you what some of the costs are as I live and breathe them.
First, the minor stuff: my constant feelings of dread and despair, the sweeping rage that alternates with petrifying fear, the torrents of tears that accompany a maddening sense of helplessness and vulnerability.
My son is involved in a deadly situation that should never have been. I feel like a mother lion in a cage, my grown cub in danger, and all I can do is throw myself furiously against the bars, impotent to protect him. My tolerance for b.s. is zero, and I've snapped off more heads in the last several months than in all the rest of my 48 years combined.
For the first time in my life and with great amazement and sorrow, I feel what can only be described as hatred. It took me a long time to admit it, but there it is. I loathe the hubris, the callousness, and the lies of those in the Bush administration who led us into this war.
Truth be told, I even loathe the fallible and very human purveyors of those lies. I feel no satisfaction in this admission, only sadness and recognition. I hope that, given time, I can do better. I never wanted to hate anyone.
Xanax helps a bit. At least it holds the debilitating panic attacks somewhat at bay, so I can fake it through one more day. A friend in the same situation relies on a six-pack of beer every night. Another has drifted into a la-la land of denial. Nice.
Then there is the wedge that has been driven between part of my extended family and me. They don't see this war as one based on lies. They've become evangelical believers in a false faith, swallowing Bush's fearmongering, his chicken-hawk posturing and strutting. They cheer his "bring 'em on" attitude as a sign of strength and resoluteness.
Perhaps life is just easier that way. These are the same people who have known my son since he was a baby; who have held him, loved him and played with him; who have bought him birthday presents and taken him fishing. I don't know them anymore.
But enough of my whining. My son is alive and in one piece, unlike the 1, 215 dead and more than 8,000 severely wounded American soldiers, which equal 9, 215 blood-soaked uniforms. That doesn't even count the estimated 20,000 troops, not publicly reported by the Department of Defense, taken out of Iraq for "noncombat-related injuries."
Every death, every injury burns like a knife in my gut, for these are all America's sons and daughters. And I know I'm not immune to that knock on my door either.
Yes, my son is alive and, as far as I know, well. I wish I could say the same for some of his friends.
One young man who was involved in heavy fighting during the invasion is now so debilitated by post-traumatic stress disorder that he routinely has flashbacks in which he smells burning flesh. He can't close his eyes without seeing people's heads squashed like frogs in the middle of the road, or dead and dying women and children, burned, bleeding and dismembered.
Sometimes he hears the sounds of battle raging around him, and he has been hospitalized twice for suicidal tendencies. When he was home on leave, this 27- year-old man would crawl into his mother's room at night and sob in her lap for hours.
Instead of getting treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, he has just received a "less than honorable" discharge from the Army. The rest of his unit redeploys to Iraq in February.
Another friend of Nick's was horrifically wounded when his humvee stopped on a bomb. He didn't even have time to instinctively raise his arm and protect his face. Shrapnel ripped through his right eye, obliterating it to gooey shreds, and penetrated his brain. He has been in a coma since March.
His mother spends every day with him in the hospital. His wife is devastated, and their 1 1/2-year-old daughter doesn't know her daddy. But my son's friend is a fighter and so is making steady, incremental progress toward consciousness.
He has a long hard struggle ahead of him, one that he shouldn't have to face, and his family has had to fight every step of the way to get him the treatment he needs. So much for supporting the troops.
I visit him every week. It breaks my heart to see the burned faces, the missing limbs, the limps and the vacant stares one encounters in an acute-care military hospital.
In front of the hospital there is a cannon, and every afternoon they blast that sucker off. You should see all those poor guys hit the pavement.
Although many requests have been made to discontinue the practice for the sake of the returning wounded, the general in charge refuses. Boom.
When Nick left for Iraq, I granted myself permission to be stark raving mad for the length of his deployment. I've done a good job of it, without apology or excuse.
And I dare say there are at least 139,999 other moms who have done the same, although considering troop rotations needed to maintain that magical number of 140,000 in the sand could put the number of crazed military moms as high as 300,000, maybe more. You might want to be careful about cutting in line in front of a middle-aged woman.
I know there are military moms who view the war in Iraq through different ideological lenses than mine. Sometimes I envy them. How much easier it must be to believe one's son or daughter is fighting for a just and noble cause.
But no matter how hard I scrutinize the invasion and occupation of Iraq, all I see are lies, corruption, and greed fueled by a powerful addiction to oil. Real soldiers get blown to tatters in their Hummers so that well-heeled American suburbanites can play in theirs.
For my family and me, the costs of this war are real and not abstract. By day, I fight my demons of dreaded possibility, beat them back into the shadows, into the dark recesses of my mind. Every night they hiss and whisper a vile prognosis of gloom and desolation. I order the voices into silence, but too often they laugh at and mock my commands.
I wonder if George Bush ever hears these voices.
I wonder, too, just how much we are willing to pay for a gallon of gas.
Teri Wills Allison, a massage therapist and a member of Military Families Speak Out, lives near Austin, Texas, with her husband. She is the mother of two adult children, the older of whom is a soldier deployed to Iraq. A version of this piece ran on tomdispatch.com.
Posted by rowan at December 11, 2004 3:27 PM | TrackBack | [eMail this article!] |This is a moving, heartfelt article--beautifully written. I appreciate the author's honesty and exposure of the chasm that opens when ideologies are so opposed (like those between she and her extended family). I have recently had 3 long-term friendships put on the line due to the strength of emotion entangled in the current definition of "being an American." Two have been adequately resolved, one will never be the same. Familiars have a difficult time when one challenges the prevailing dogma.
One thing that did distress me, though, was that this mother did not acknowledge the mothers of the children (and men) who have died in Iraq. Mothers who had nothing to do with Saddam's government (or maybe who did), and no way to protect their children from the ravages of war. While this is a personal essay, and I'm sure the ommission was due to the focus of the work, until we hear the grief from both sides and start to mourn on a global level, I don't see a movement toward resolution and healing to this crisis.
Posted by: Pamela at December 11, 2004 6:37 PMI agree with Pamela, I have mentioned it before but the best method of reconcillation is what Desmond Tutu did in South Africa, where both parties on opposite sides had to face each other in a court like setting to deal with the past. Saw this in a bumper sticker "God Bless the World...no exceptions"
Posted by: Bill at December 12, 2004 2:38 PMThough my son be only seven today, with all that has been exposed in relation to a secret draft/registration for selective service, I fear that my son will be forced into military service. Many moons ago, being a soldier was an honorable thing. Now it is a death sentence. Just imagining my son being sent away in this manner would drive me to the nut house much the same way this mother has described.
Her story almost made me cry. I think of my cousin who is set to be deployed to Iraq, if he has not already been sent. His mother, my aunt, is the one sobbing right now. Her prayer is for her son to stay at home. I hope her prayer is answered.
Another thought crosses my mind when reading this story. Other wars of the past have resulted in similar tragedies. Though these wars served a valid purpose, many of those who did come home alive came home drunk and permanently traumatized. Some of America's major social problems can be traced back to these wars. My mother's father came home so drunk and so traumatized, he saw his wife as the enemy and beat her with his fists. My mother has talked of his nightmares and what he was like sober. In 1962, his soul was set to rest. He died under the age of 50 of lung cancer. We all know that my grandfather was not alone in this drunkeness and abusive approach to life.
My father's father also served in WWII. He shared his story with me to some extent. He said he and his buddies dropped out of high school so they could become soldiers. They thought it would be cool to fight in a war. They found out it was not so cool. He, too, came home drunk, but was not abusive when I knew him, though I know there was a time when he may have been. I remember his brand of beer. He did eventually quit drinking, but not until all five of his children left home, and my brother and I were aware enough to know what was going on. My grandfather was a survivor who did recover sufficiently to function normally in this society. I have no doubts that if he were alive today, he would join the ranks of those veterans against the war.
Now here we are again. War survivors who unintentionally see their families as the enemy and continue the cycles of violence in this country. Is there no real end? Can we condemn them for their psychological dysfunction? What can we do to mend the wounds- the ones that do not leave physical scars but hurt much worse?
I do not appreciate being included in her assumption that all military moms are crazed. My son is currently halfway through his second deployment and I am not only sane but have channeled the anxiety that comes with having a son in a war zone to productive efforts. Last year, a couple friends and I sent 5,000 lbs. of school supplies to Najaf where they were handed out to school kids who were attending school for the first time after our Marines and Seabees refurbished the schools that had been subverted into ammunition warehouses by Saddam's Fedayeen. This year, we just finished sending 6,000 Christmas stockings to these young men and women who are spending the holidays apart from family.
Concentrating on "demons of dreaded possibility" who hiss and whisper? Please. No wonder this mom is on Xanax. Maybe she needs to have those med levels checked . . . or just do something positive to make a difference for our troops and the people of the lands in which they serve.
Posted by: Deb at December 15, 2004 1:56 AMWe all cope with hardship in our own way. Some are stronger than others, depending on how you define strength. Judging others does not do anything to help in any realm. It only adds to the hardship.
Posted by: Shawna at December 16, 2004 10:48 AMThere was no statement in this personal narrative that indicates the author feels "all military moms are crazed."
It is commendable to be stoic, but I empathize with the authors sense that her son is in serious jeopardy because of a war founded on manipulations and pretenses that put the sons of those who aren't making policy at risk. I empathize with the fear she has for her son, and her response to that fear.
I have to say that the tone of your response took exactly the same liberty of universal privilege that you accuse the author of taking.
Posted by: Pamela at December 16, 2004 11:52 AMI am the author of the piece in discussion, and I agree with Pamela's distress that this version of the article did not include any mention of my counterparts in Iraq. If one wishes to read the original version, which does indeed express my distress and solidarity with the mothers of Iraq, see: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1920
As to any who might question my 'strength' or decision to medicate, I make no excuses. Go back and reread the piece. If any mother believes that her grown child is fighting for a cause in which she believes, there will certainly be worry and anguish...but there will also be some level of comfort in her agreement with the need to fight. I find no such comfort.
It would be a mistake however, to question my toughness or tenacity. I fight this war today in my own way, and if you're in the middle of a fight you'd want someone like me..temporarily insane or not..on your side.
To me every death, every amputation, every case of TBI and PTSD, every tear shed, every sleepless hour spent, each Iraq war vet that shows up in a homeless shelter (yes, this is happening already)or has to fight to get their deserved VA benefits...and the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis...all these and more are the result of a criminal, inexcusable, illegal and immoral doctrine of *preemptive strike*. And did I leave out deceit? It is my goal, and the goal of many like me, to see the key players in this administration impeached and prosecuted for war crimes.
As of today, fully 56% of the American public believe that going into Iraq was a mistake (where were they in November?)
As a soldier's mom, I applaud and commend everyone who makes the time and effort to provide comfort to our young (and not so young) men and women serving in this--or any--war zone. I don't care if one supports the war or not..the warriors don't choose the battles, and they need to know we have their backs. That includes not only sending them christmas stockings and insisting they are properly armored (outrageous!), but demanding their immediate return to their home duty stations when they have been sent without just cause...or better yet, paying enough attention to insure they never get sent except as a an absolute last resort.
You won't catch this mother solemnly waving her flag when one of our kids falls in battle...instead you will find me weeping tears of rage and grief, pledging on every life shattered, ruined and lost...American as well as Iraqi...to do all in my power to bring this atrocity to an end.