Off to War

by Deborah Ellis

  I have three brothers and sisters. The first time Dad went to Iraq, the baby was only four months old and not able to do anything. You know how babies are. Then, when Dad came back, the baby was a whole lot different and didn’t know who Dad was.

  We were all really sad when Dad went to Iraq the first time. He’s a big part of our family. Some dads, it doesn’t really matter if they’re around or not, and some dads, if they drink or yell or hit a lot, it’s better if they’re gone, but our dad is one of the good ones, so it really left a hole in our family when he left. Mom was always up in her room the first time, with the baby, and she was sad, so I had to do lots of extra things for my brother and sister so they wouldn’t bother her and would let her rest. A lot of the time my brother and sister were even too sad to play. The whole house was sad for a long time.

  Then we sort of pulled ourselves together and got on with things, and got so we weren’t falling apart all the time. Then Dad came home, and it was great. I thought everything would be happy again, like usual. And we were, we were happy, but Dad was used to being in Iraq and being in danger, so being safe and at home was a little strange to him.

  Like, my mother had rearranged the kitchen drawers while he was gone, to clean them out and make them work better, but she didn’t tell Dad. Then he came home and said, “What did you do? I can’t find anything. Where are the spoons?” He likes everything to be the same as it was when he left it, and we try to do that, but we don’t always manage.

  But we were working it out and doing okay and getting used to each other again and feeling normal. Then he got his orders — “Back to Iraq!” And he was gone for another sixteen months or whatever it was.

  The second trip he did to Iraq was a little easier for us because he knew we’d managed the first time and we could manage again. I mean, I think two tours are not fair, lots of Americans don’t even do one, but it’s the army and he has to obey orders, so that was the way it was.

  My mom kept us really busy the second time. Lots of sports, lots of chores. We were older, too, so we could do more. She started a group, too, to help other military families.

  It’s good to be busy, especially when the fear starts running through your mind. I go outside a lot with my brothers and sister, and we play soccer, tennis, or just run around a lot. When your mind is running with fear, you feel better if you get your body running from other things. I also help out with the house and take over some of Dad’s chores, like laundry and looking after things. Some kids hate chores, but I like that we don’t leave everything to my mom, and I also like knowing how to look after myself. I mean, you don’t want your mom to do your laundry forever, right?

  Although that kind of causes problems, too, because Dad will see us taking care of things and doing fine, and he’ll say, “Why did I even come back here? You don’t need me for anything!” I think it kind of hurts his feelings that we can manage without him. But it would be worse if we couldn’t, because then we’d be a mess, and he’d be over in Iraq worrying about us instead of watching the road for bombs.

  My father’s best friend in the army was killed that way, by a bomb in the road. His friend drove a truck, just like Dad does, and the bomb was buried, or maybe there was a trip-wire that he didn’t see, and it went off and his truck exploded.

  The day that it happened, Mom picked me up from school to take me to Grandma’s so that she could look after the guy’s wife. She spent a long time sitting with her and taking care of her. They have a little baby, too. I remember thinking that my dad was probably crying a lot and that the baby would have to grow up without a daddy. It stinks. It just stinks.

  The best thing about Dad going to Iraq is, before he goes, he spends a whole day with each of us, by ourselves, doing whatever we want to do — go to a movie, or a park, or whatever. It’s a really special time and I wish we could do it without him having to go away afterwards.

  I asked Mom once, “Is Daddy going to die?” This was just after he left for the first time. I was really young, but even then I knew people get killed in wars. I asked her while she was folding laundry, and she said, “No, he’s not.” And I asked, “You mean God will watch over him?” And she said, “Yes.”

  What she meant was that we don’t know if Dad will be killed or not, because it could happen, but we need to have faith that he’ll be all right. That helps, too, when the fear starts to take over my thoughts. I just say to myself, “He’ll be all right. He’ll be all right.” And that calms me down.

  I think we’re the only military family in my town, so my friends can’t understand what we’re going through. They never think about the war, or if they do, they see it as one of those boring, adult things that have nothing to do with them. Or they watch it on the news and it’s all explosions and running through the streets with guns, knocking down doors. To them it’s either boring or exciting, like some video game. They don’t get it.

  I think that’s one of the good things about being a military kid. You get informed about the world, and it matures you, knowing what goes on. Like, for my birthday recently, my mom took me out to dinner, just her and me. We went to a Japanese steak house, the kind of place where you can watch them cook it on a grill, and I ended up having this conversation with a man who was sitting beside us, telling him about Dad’s deployment and about Iraq, and how the insurgents try to blow up trucks when they run out of bullets, and all that. Mom said afterwards that she couldn’t believe how mature I sounded.

  So that’s a good thing. Another is that you get to get close to a lot of cool military stuff like tanks, closer than a regular kid gets to be, and you get to tour military bases like Fort Dix and Fort McCoy, and hear lots of guns firing at the same time. It’s also good to know your dad is protecting the country.

  When Dad is in Iraq, he keeps in touch with us as much as he can. He drives around the country, so he’s not always at a base where there’s internet or phones. Sometimes he can only send us short text messages, but it’s nice to know that he remembers us even though he’s so far away.

  Sometimes the army sends him to a really great base. This one base he was on, it had a movie theater, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, Burger King, Taco Bell, Baskin and Robbins, a big PX where he could buy anything he wanted. Other bases are pretty rough, with no store or anything, so we have to send him care packages with socks and toothbrushes. Sometimes he sleeps in a really nice place, and sometimes he has to live in old metal train cars.

  When he’s not in Iraq, he has a regular job, with computers. His boss has to let him go to war, then has to give him his job back when he comes home. That’s the law.

  It’s been tough on my mom, though, about money, I mean. The last time my dad was away, we qualified for food stamps. The army pays for all our medical care while Dad’s in Iraq — the whole family — and for a little while after he gets back, but then Mom and Dad have to pay for it again. They’re thinking of having Dad join the regular full-time army, because medical care is expensive, especially with four kids always getting into something.

  My mom is an amazing woman. She gets the whole family through this. I went to a summer camp in Ohio for kids whose parents are deployed, and a lot of the moms were all nervous and upset, so their kids were nervous and upset, too, and on all kinds of pills for their nerves. Mom just says, “We can do this,” and since she’s so strong and brave, then we can be strong and brave.

  When my dad gets back from Iraq for the third time, I’ll be twelve going on thirteen. He’ll hardly know me. He’ll hardly know any of us. It’s hard when he first comes home, at least at first, to have a conversation with him, a real one, because we’ve changed and he’s changed, and we don’t know each other any more. Plus, maybe he’ll have to go back to Iraq a fourth time, and a fifth, and he’ll miss out on everything.

  One thing that I get afraid of is that we’ll get more used to him being gone than being with us, and he’ll realize that and not want to come home at all because he’ll think, “What’s the
point? It’s not really my home anymore. Iraq is my home.”

  I guess it’s a good thing America is helping the Iraqi people, but it stinks that so many parents are away.

  My advice for other military kids is, do the things you like the most. Just because your parent is in Iraq, you shouldn’t stop enjoying your life. It will make the time go faster, and you’ll have something to talk about when your parent gets home.

  Alex, 11

  “Friendly fire” is a term used when soldiers are accidentally shot at not by the enemy, but by people on their own side. Seventeen American and six Canadian soldiers have died as a result of friendly fire in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  Alex lives and goes to school on base at the Canadian Forces Base in Petawawa, Ontario, where his father is a corporal.

  Right now my dad’s on some type of leadership course. He might move up to be a master corporal. He’s with the infantry. The infantry are the ones who stand out in front of the front lines and shoot.

  Dad’s been to Afghanistan, to Kabul. He left last August, and he got back last February. He might be going back again, too, but I don’t know when.

  There’s four in my family. I have an older brother who lives in London. I’m the youngest. When my dad is away it’s just me and my mom. It’s a bit sad when he’s away. Sometimes I try to forget that he’s gone, and I don’t think about it just so I can try and be happier.

  Dad left on, I believe, August 12. It was a pretty sad day. We took him to the airport. There were others leaving at the same time. No one made a speech or anything. They just got on a plane.

  We knew a couple of months ahead of time that he was going. I was worried that he’d get hurt over there. He didn’t talk to me about it very much, so I don’t know if he was afraid or not.

  My life changes when Dad’s away because my mom’s there, but she’s the only one there, and she has to work. She works at Blackbear Campground on the base, and she works at the Canex. So I’m left on my own a lot.

  Mom was really worried when Dad was gone. I think a lot of people would be worried. I was worried, too. It helped when we talked about it.

  He called a lot from Afghanistan. We’d be out and there would be a message on the machine, and so often we’d just miss his call just by a few minutes! That happened so often!

  When we did get to talk, we just talked about how he’s doing. He didn’t talk much about his job or what he had to do over there. He mostly talked about his job here. There’s a lot of PT and running around on his leadership course. He has to learn how to lead others.

  I’m not a big army fan. I like supporting the troops, but I’m not a guy that wants to go into it. It just seems that it would be a bit hard. It’s not that I don’t take challenges or anything, but I think it would be hard to do. And it’s not really the job I want to do.

  I love music — rock, rap, lots of music, although not country. I’m learning to play the drums, and I like to sing. I’d like to be in a band. That would be my ideal job. If I can’t do that, then I’d like to be a police officer.

  Dad doesn’t talk very much about his time in Afghanistan. He said that some things aren’t really meant for me to know. Sometimes I try to imagine what he did over there. Actually, I wonder about that a lot. We hear on TV about Canadians in Afghanistan dying because the United States army accidentally kills them. I always wonder if that’s going to happen to him, if he goes back, if the Americans will accidentally kill him.

  I also sometimes wonder if he’s killed anybody. Infantries have to do that. It’s their job to shoot at people. But it’s not the kind of thing I could ask him. That’s the sort of thing he’d think is not for me to know.

  I wouldn’t say it would change my opinion of him if he killed somebody. I guess if he was part of the Mafia and killed somebody, that would be one thing. But he’s in the infantry, and if he had to do his job and kill someone who was trying to kill him, then it wouldn’t change my opinion of him. I think he’s a good guy.

  Dad was a lot different when he came back from Afghanistan. Before, he wasn’t extremely strict, but he was a little bit strict. Now, he’s like all sad for some reason. Not sad exactly. He’s happy enough. It’s more like he’s wondering if I think he’s a good dad and stuff like that. I always tell him he is.

  It isn’t really sadness, actually. He’s just changed a lot.

  I’m just going to make up something as an example. He wouldn’t really do this, but say I accidentally bathed the dog with real shampoo instead of dog shampoo. Before, he might yell at me. Now, he’ll just say, ‘Oh, the dog shampoo is right over here.’ Stuff like that.

  Little things that would bother him before are not a big deal to him now. It’s sort of sadness and it’s sort of not. It’s hard to explain.

  He’ll have to go back to Afghanistan either this August or next February. I don’t think he’s really worrying about it because it’s so far away. I’m a bit worried because I don’t want him to go back. I’ll miss him a lot.

  I’m not an extremely bad kid, so I try to help Mom out when Dad’s away and not add to her stress. I try to help her with the dishes and cleaning up the house. Mom and I have a really nice relationship. We respect each other. She doesn’t order me around or yell at me. We take care of each other when Dad is away.

  I think the Canadian soldiers are trying to protect the Afghans and to help them have a nice country, a country like ours. They’re trying to build schools and make good laws, like our laws. If there aren’t enough soldiers there the Taliban will just blow all the schools up. It’s Canada’s job to be there, and America’s, because we have to help these people. Otherwise they’ll all be dead, and technically it will just be a wasteland after all this. For the Taliban it’s like a drug hideout. It’s our job to stop the Taliban before it gets too powerful.

  I know there’s a difference between Canada and the United States. Like, they have more clothes and casinos and stuff like that. There’s not much of a difference, though. We’re both helping.

  I might have things in common with Afghan kids. I don’t really know. I haven’t met any. I’d have to meet one first and see how we get along. Kids all want to play, so we’d probably have that in common.

  My advice for other military kids? If they’re sad that their dad or mom is gone, and they’re crying or something like that, then just try to think happy thoughts. Watch a movie or do something to clear it off your mind. I’m not saying forget about your mom or your dad, but just try to get rid of the pain and remember the happy thoughts and the good times that you had with them, like going bowling or shooting pool. Just try to be a happy person instead of a sad person.

  Tori, 11

  There are different opinions among military families about whether their countries should be in Iraq or Afghanistan. Some kids have very strong opinions, for and against. Others feel they have enough to worry about in their own lives without worrying about larger world issues that even many adults can’t seem to figure out.

  Kids in military families may feel nervous about voicing opinions against the war because they want to support their parents. Some families encourage expression of all opinions. Others believe that it is important to support the country’s leaders, especially in times of war. Still others try to shelter their children from any discussions of the war, so that they can have as happy a childhood as possible.

  Tori lives in base housing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Her father is a first sergeant who has been posted overseas several times — to Korea, to Iraq during Desert Storm and back to Iraq again.

  My father is over in Iraq. He’s supposed to stay there for fifteen months. He’s been gone almost a year, so he has a few months to go.

  I’d rather not tell you exactly where my dad is in Iraq. I’ll just say Iraq. He’s over there instructing other soldiers in how to do things like jump out of airplanes. Jumping out of planes is one of the things my dad is good at. He also does a lot of scouting, which means he looks around and checks things
out.

  This is not my dad’s first trip overseas. He’s been to Korea, and I think he was also in Desert Storm.

  He’s in Iraq now because George Bush sent him there. Beyond that, I don’t really know why. We’re ruining Iraq. We’re not helping it. I don’t think we should have just walked into Iraq like we owned it. The people there have lives, too, and they want to live them, and we’re not helping them do that.

  Fort Bragg is the second military base I’ve lived on. I also lived on Fort Polk in Louisiana. Sometimes it’s good to live on a base because everyone around you is going through the same thing. You don’t always have to explain it to them because they have a dad or a mom in Iraq or somewhere, and they know how you feel because they feel the same way.

  At least I know where my father is. My neighbors, they don’t know where their dad is. He’s with one of the branches of the army that doesn’t tell anything, so he could be anywhere. I’ve seen Iraq on the news so at least I can picture Dad in my head, because I sort of know what it looks like around him, and that helps. But these kids, it’s like their father just vanishes, and they can’t picture anything. They can’t ask him about it, either, when he comes home. Well, they can ask, but he can’t tell them, so why would they bother?

  I only have one close friend who is a military brat. I’m a little too weird for a lot of army kids. I act differently and I see things differently. It’s strange to be with regular kids, though, because they can live their lives without a clue about what’s going on in the world. Some of them barely know who the president is, let alone that there’s a war going on. So there’s me, with my father far away and maybe getting shot at or dying for his country, and there’s these regular kids who don’t have a clue.

  It’s good to have non-military friends, though. It helps me feel normal. If all you had were army kids for friends, you could never forget about the world, and sometimes it’s good to forget for a little while.