Off to War

by Deborah Ellis

  My cats don’t like moving, either. Well, I just have one cat now. My cat Hans looked like a tiger but he died of brain cancer. My cat Oscar is still alive. He’s really lazy. He likes to lie down on the heater and hog all the heat for himself. I also have a dog named Toby. Toby likes to chase Oscar.

  My advice is more for adults than for kids. You should set up more deployment groups, and make them for all ages, even for little kids who really don’t know what’s going on. My neighbor’s kids’ dad was sent to Afghanistan, and they found it really hard. They’re really young, but they still need a place to show their feelings, just like the big kids.

  Khayla, 12

  Both of Khayla’s parents are in the Reserves. Reserve forces generally live off base and hold down civilian jobs while keeping up their military training. They supplement the full-time force and often serve overseas.

  Khayla’s stepfather is a captain. Her mother is a professor at the University of Michigan. She also recruits for the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), which is offered by all branches of the American military. It allows university students to train to become military officers while completing their education. They participate in weekly military drills and study military subjects in addition to their regular course load.

  Both of my parents were sent overseas, my stepdad to Kuwait and my mom to Iraq.

  When Mom was away, I stayed with my aunt. It felt like a long time, but her tour wasn’t the longest one. I’ve met kids whose parents get sent to Iraq for nearly two years. Then they come home and get sent back to Iraq again. Mom wasn’t gone that long. It just seemed long.

  She was supposed to be in Iraq for eighteen months, but she came home early because she was pregnant with my little sister. My sister is two, and she repeats everything we say. She’s cute, but a little annoying just now.

  When my parents were gone, I kept telling my friends, “My mom and dad won’t get hurt. They won’t get killed.” Telling them that helped me believe it. I kind of felt when they left that they weren’t going to get hurt. You know how sometimes you can get a bad feeling about things? I didn’t have that bad feeling, but still, you never know.

  The first couple of days after they left, I cried all the time. I missed them so much, and they were going someplace so far away that I couldn’t just ask my mother something if I needed her, or just be around her when I felt like it. But my aunt is great, and you can’t cry all the time. After awhile I sort of got used to it and shaped up and got on with things.

  Dad was in Kuwait, and there’s no war there, so he was really safe. Mom was right inside Iraq. I’m not sure what she was doing there. She says she didn’t see a lot of actual shooting, but she still saw a lot of the war.

  Most kids think war is really horrible, and that everyone who gets into one dies, but that’s not the case at all. A lot of soldiers go to Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever, and they do their job and come home fine, and they even have a good time while they’re over there.

  Mom talks to me a lot about it because she doesn’t want me to get the wrong idea. Like, she told me about riding in the passenger seat of a truck somewhere in Iraq, and how she had to stick her gun out the window in case she needed to shoot at someone. Shooting wasn’t her main job, but everybody in the army needs to know how to do it, just in case they get attacked.

  She told me that tons of little Iraqi kids would run up to the truck with their hands out, begging for things. They’d beg for ChapStick, or shampoo, or money, or food. Mom says it was really hard for her to see them because the kids were so cute and so poor, and she’s a mom so she wanted to look after them all. But she’s a soldier first when she’s over there, and as a soldier, she had to be stern. Sometimes the insurgents will strap a bomb to a kid, or tell the kids to distract the soldiers, and while the soldiers are busy with the kids, the terrorists attack. So Mom had to be strict and keep them away from the truck so that she could make sure she was safe and everyone else was safe, too.

  I have no clue why the United States is in Iraq. I really don’t know why we went in there. I never watch the news. Not deliberately, anyway. Sometimes I’m in an airport or someplace, and the news will be on the television, so I’ll see it then. Sometimes it’s about Iraq, but I can’t make any sense of it.

  I attended an Operation Purple summer camp this year. It’s a special camp put on by the Military Family Association for kids who have a parent deployed overseas somewhere. It’s a chance for us to get together and have fun.

  You see, some soldiers are part of the regular army, or navy or air force or marines, and their kids live with them right on military bases. Those kids have other military kids for friends, and everybody understands what everybody else is going through. But some soldiers belong to the Reserves, or to the National Guard, and their kids just live in regular towns without any other military kids around. So when they say to their friends, “My mom is in Iraq,” the friends might say, “Oh, she’s going to die,” or “Where’s Iraq?” They don’t get it.

  At the camp, everybody was in the same situation, so we didn’t have to explain anything. We could just tell each other what was going on, and we understood. I made all kinds of new friends.

  Some of the time we did regular overnight camp stuff. We stayed in cabins, went swimming, rock-climbing. There was a dunking booth, lots of games. I didn’t get to rappel, but I did go on the rip line. You put on a harness and hook yourself up to a thick wire and go sailing through the trees. It was great.

  They also had a Military Day. Some folks from the army brought in armored vehicles and a helicopter, and we got to see them up close, and we got to try on some army clothes, like helmets and boots. The soldiers have to wear forty pounds of clothes, which must be very hot in the desert.

  They also handed out MREs, which stands for Meals Ready to Eat. They’re for when the soldiers have to eat their meals out in the field, away from a proper kitchen. They ran out before they got to me, so I didn’t get one, but I saw what was in them: regular food like chicken and stew, rice, vegetables, crackers, mixed fruit, plus drinks and M&M’s, and a mocha latte drink everyone said was really good.

  For discussions, the camp people divided us into three groups. One was for kids whose parents have been deployed already and have come home. One was for kids whose parents are deployed now, and one was for kids whose parents are going to be deployed but they haven’t left yet. We talked about our experiences and our feelings, what it meant to us and how it changed us. Those of us who have been through it got to give advice to the others about how to stay strong and be positive and take care of yourself and your family.

  I really want to join the military when I get older. When I get to high school I’ll join the army ROTC and I’ll learn a lot there that will prepare me for the regular army. ROTC will also help pay for my college tuition and books and things. The job I want to do is to be a journalist in the army. I like to write, so it would be a perfect job. Mom and I looked it up. You go into the war, right into it with the rest of the soldiers and interview people and report what they say, just like a newscaster. But you’re with the army as well, so you get all the benefits.

  Dad doesn’t want me to do it. He thinks it will be too dangerous, and he doesn’t want me to get hurt. But Mom says the war in Iraq will probably be over by the time I’m grown up.

  I’m a very curious person. I like to learn about what’s going on around me, and that’s a good quality for a journalist to have. I also like to write stories — made-up stories — and I’m good at volleyball. I like to do lots of stuff, really.

  I’ve heard that some people are against the war and against the military, and they protest about it. I think they don’t understand that the soldiers are saving our country. They see things like soldiers being killed, and they’re unhappy about that. Maybe the ones being killed are young and they haven’t really learned about war and haven’t been in training long enough to learn how to protect themselves. So they get shot and killed, and t
hat’s what the protesters are angry about.

  My advice to other military kids is to remember that it’s good to be a military kid. We get to have more experiences than a regular child. Our parents stand in the middle of a war, and that gives us a different view of the world. Of course, you never know if they’re going to get hurt, and that makes it hard. Not every parent does, but some of them do, so it’s possible. But you should just be proud of them and make yourself strong and do things that will make the rest of your life really good.

  Kaela, 13, Cole, 6, and Eric, 6

  Canadian Forces Base Shilo is the single largest employer for the nearby city of Brandon, Manitoba, out on the Canadian prairie. It was established as a training area for soldiers in 1910 and is now home to the Canadian Horse Artillery and the Princess Patricia Light Infantry, among other regiments. The base also provides training for soldiers from Germany, France, Denmark and the United States.

  CFB Shilo is a fairly small base, with 1,400 soldiers and their families. It has a Canex (general store), a community newspaper, a country club, a military museum, an ice cream and sandwich shop and a library. There are youth and community groups and an elementary school on base for soldiers’ kids, but high school students are bused to Brandon.

  Although some military families live on base, Kaela and her twin brothers live in a small neighborhood just outside the base gates. The few winding streets of their little community are connected to the base by a wooded trail. There are deer in the woods, as well as soldiers on training missions.

  Kaela — My dad is a corporal with the Canadian military. He’s been in Afghanistan and Bosnia, and is going to go back to Afghanistan in the new year.

  We usually don’t get much warning before he goes away. We had only about three weeks’ notice before he was sent to Afghanistan. I was surprised when he told us he was going. I was more surprised when I learned what it was really going to be like over there, that he’d be shooting people and people would be shooting back at him. It wouldn’t be peacekeeping. It would be war.

  My mom was away with my brothers when Dad left. It was just me and him, so we stayed up really late the night before he went, playing games and hanging out. I told him to wake me up in the morning before he left, and he did. We said goodbye, then he left. I sat there for a couple of minutes, then I had to get ready for school. I had to go on with my regular day.

  It really hit me hard a couple of days later because I realized he was going to be away for a very long time.

  I initially thought his job over there was just to keep the Taliban out of the city — like, when he saw them there, he’d just kick them out of it — but it’s actually quite a bit worse than that. Depends on how they meet. There’s often a lot of shooting involved.

  He was in danger at least a couple of times that I know about. I haven’t asked him for the details. When he was home, I didn’t want him to have to think about Afghanistan so he could feel he was back in his regular life.

  I didn’t know anything about Afghanistan before Dad went over there, but I found out a lot since, such as how poor it is and how hard most of the people have to struggle to get by. I wanted to do something to help.

  My dad sent an email to my mom saying that the Afghan kids were asking for pens and pencils and paper, and that gave me the idea to get people here to donate school supplies that could be sent over. I got the word around, and lots of people donated. We had a lot of pickups, a lot of boxes. I broke my knee doing it! We had just picked up and dropped off a carload of school supplies, and I turned to run back to the car so we could pick up some more, and I slipped and hit my knee. I was in a cast for awhile, but I mend fast. The military helped us get the supplies over to Afghanistan.

  Dad was able to keep in touch with us a bit while he was gone. We emailed him about just ordinary things, like my fish, which he bought me before he left. He bought me four goldfish. They were doing okay until I put another fish in with them that killed them all.

  Dad sent Mom pictures and a video from Afghanistan, and she put them all together on DVDs, with music. Sometimes it’s funny, because she says we need to laugh. Like, there’s Julie Andrews singing “My Favorite Things,” while soldiers are uncoiling razor wire, flying helicopters, kicking in doors, pictures of big fields of marijuana. Stuff like that.

  He also sent her pictures of the base. It’s pretty rough living. Not what we’re used to here. She made the DVD for the padres to show to the newbies and reservists going over to Afghanistan for the first time so they can see what they’re getting into.

  Dad was in the military for two years before he met Mom. He likes it because he says it gives him a higher sense of purpose, and he takes pride in his country. He feels proud, too, for going through all the difficulties in Afghanistan. I think he also likes being on the edge and surviving danger.

  When he came home on leave, my mom went to pick him up. They had promised me a dog, so they picked the dog up at the same time. I loved that dog so much! It was like a gift from Dad that made it so special. Well, my dog tried to attack my brother’s dog — my brother has a working dog, a Jack Russell terrier — because he has special needs. We tried to fix the problem. I was really attached to that dog because my dad gave him to me and Dad had gone to Afghanistan. We tried for a year, but we had to get rid of it.

  We were living in Winnipeg when Dad first left for Afghanistan, but by the time he came home on leave, Mom had moved us to where we are now, just on the outside of CFB Shilo. There’s more room out here, and it’s quieter. Off base, we get a bigger house and a bigger yard, but all my friends are on base, so I have quite a walk to go to see them. I go to school on the base.

  In Winnipeg we were surrounded by the civilian world. Civilian kids don’t understand anything. When I stayed away from school they called me Skipper. They didn’t understand it was because my dad was gone and I was too sad to go to school. I felt sick a lot, too, when he was gone — worried and nervous. I couldn’t concentrate on school work even when I went to school.

  I don’t go to any of the groups on base for kids of deployed parents. Some kids like to talk about it and some kids want to just live their life and try to keep thinking about it for when it’s really needed, so it doesn’t bother them. I’m the kind who keeps it away. My friends and I do go to the teen center on base to watch movies or play pool or cards, or just hang out after school.

  Deep in the forest around the base they have field training, and we can hear a lot of bombs and guns. I’ve gotten used to it. It was freaky at first. We didn’t hear that sort of thing in Winnipeg. One morning we saw a lot of soldiers loading a bunch of LAVs onto a train car to take to CFB Wainwright for practice.

  Dad had a lot of combat stress when he came home. He tried to hide it from us kids, but I could see that he was a lot quicker to get angry. Before he went, he was so patient with my brothers, more patient even than Mother Teresa would be, my mom says. When he came back he lost it. His patience was gone — not just with my brothers, but with me, too. He’d start in on me for making just the smallest sort of thirteen-year-old comment. He’d get so upset about the smallest, dumbest things.

  He was just starting to calm down again when he got sent away for training, and he’ll come back from training just in time to go back to Afghanistan for another year.

  It was hardest on my mom when he came home because he’d hit her in his sleep. He wouldn’t mean to. It was just combat stress, but he’d be dreaming or having a nightmare, and he would just start punching her. She thought she was going crazy until she talked to one of the other army wives and learned it was pretty common. That lasted for a few weeks until he settled in.

  The whole deployment has improved my relationship with my mom, but it didn’t start out that way. At first she would keep stuff from me. She didn’t want to worry me. She’d hear things from Afghanistan and keep them to herself. I knew she was bothered by something but didn’t know what it was. I thought she was angry with me. I was hurting and a
ngry and lonely, and we weren’t talking to each other. This big space opened up between us until one day we had this huge fight. I told her, “Mom, you’re not helping me, you’re hurting me.” Since then, things have gotten a lot better. We’re communicating again.

  I really admire my mom. She’s kept us together through all of this.

  One way the government could improve on all this — although it may be more expensive for them — would be to send better-trained people over to Afghanistan, people who have been in the army longer. Then maybe there wouldn’t be so many deaths. And they shouldn’t keep our soldiers there for so long. And maybe the soldiers that are newer, train them better and give them all the information they need. I think some of the deaths are from not enough training.

  One of my neighbors was killed in Afghanistan. They had just moved here, and they had their house built brand new, just for them. They’d just moved in when their dad was sent to Afghanistan.

  When the announcement came in that a thirty-three-year-old father of three had died, we got a lot of questions from people because that’s exactly like our family. Our mom got really worried, but it wasn’t our dad.

  The family still lives in the same house. The kids are all younger than me. I know them, but I haven’t asked them about their dad’s death. If they’ve gotten over it, I wouldn’t want to bring it up and make them think about it again. I think my mom’s tried to help. She’s like that. She likes to do things for people. We’re looking after the padre’s dogs now while he’s in Afghanistan.

  I’m not going to join the military. I’m no good at waking up early! Maybe I’d join if I didn’t have to leave home, but that’s not the way it works. Girls can do anything guys can do, and the military lets women do lots of things, but I just don’t think it’s for me. I don’t know what I want to do. Something with horses, probably.