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I know how you feel as a father. I managed to avoid combat when I took my turn. My father fought in Korea and Vietnam. When my son told me he wanted to join the Marines, I discouraged him. I told the Marine recruiter to leave him alone. When he was about to go to San Diego, he realized he'd made a mistake. I called my U.S. senator and told him to tell the Marines to tear up the enlistment form. They did. When he said he wanted to join the Army, I told him to request an MoS in supply or become a "Remington Ranger" and work in the offices. He joined the cavalry. I said OK, become a motor pool mechanic. You will learn skills that you can use when you get out. He signed up to be a scout. After graduating from training, he was sent to Iraq for the invasion. Turkey wouldn't let his unit in, so I thought maybe that would keep him safe. Nope. He was one of the first ones across the border. The cavalry goes in front of the infantry and the scouts go in front of the cavalry. He was involved in the search and capture of Saddam Hussein, came home for a year, went back to teach the Iraqis which end of the gun to point at the bad guys, and came home again. He had two Humvees blown out from under him, injured his knee, was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD. He was given a medical discharge halfway through his second enlistment. His 12-year-old son is very interested in war games -- armor, naval and air -- and I dread the day when he may tell us he is enlisting. Old men start wars; young men die in them.
I have focused my stories on the people and the mission and excluded the rest.
When I’ve focused on what I got to do for the people, it has allowed the stories to remain positive because you can engage the memories of your friends around you.
Focusing on the mission in broad terms has generally worked for me. Instead of talking about specific engagements I discuss the theme. We were there to help get people out of a bad situation. We had to help ships get to where they were going safely. We had to protect a dam to make sure it didn’t get damaged because it could flood the valley below. Things like that.
I spent 2.5 years deployed over 5 deployments and was diagnosed with PTSD. As a medic with an infantry battalion I have no shortage of gruesome history to pull upon. I have done counseling and worked through a lot and gotten to a pretty good, but not perfect, place. Interestingly it’s the simple nature of my son’s questions that open up things that I hadn’t even thought of for as long as I can remember. Not the big, dramatic events I talked through in counseling but the small mundane things.
For instance, he asked me if cooks ever have to fight. Well, yes, it’s happened. There was a stressful incident that happened around that. Nothing ended up coming from it but in the moment it was certainly less than ideal. In all my thoughts about the war that incident never bubbled up. But here it is from an innocent and simple question. He’s a very inquisitive boy so that’s not the only question like that nor will it be the last.
Has anyone run into this? How did you handle it personally? With your child?
Deployed 5 times in 2.5 years? That seems like a lot, hope some of those were short
Kids can understand a lot, even at that age, but obviously you want to keep it appropriate. Maybe have them write down or voice record questions they have and that way they still can be curious, but you can deal with it in your own time. Also just telling them it’s difficult for you to talk about some of it, but you appreciate their interesting questions.
Tell your kids the truth and withhold nothing. Detail things as they can understand them at their age. They know when you are lying to them. By lying to them who are you trying to protect, them or you? Children never moreso than now need to hear the ugly realities of the world and the conflicts those who work in the houses of treason create for us to live in. With our elected representatives deciding this year whether or not to silently push through measures to create a new draft to send your kids off to die to protect their investments in Ukraine or worse when they push for a conflict where they wind-up glowing in the dark. Rhey need the truth. It'll better protect them dor their reality. Lord knows ours were fucked up by our own parents who didn't speak or lied to is about the reality of war. Look where that got us. Don't lie to your kids.