Off to War

by Deborah Ellis

  We sent Dad packages the last time he went overseas, so we’ll do that again when he goes away. He really likes Twizzlers, so we’ll include those, and maybe some Tim Horton’s coffee or gift certificates.

  When he first came home, he’d drive the car right down the middle of the highway, because that’s how they have to drive in Afghanistan since there are often bombs along the sides of the roads. Mom made him stop driving until he settled down. I guess he’ll get into that habit again when he goes back.

  My advice to other kids like me is to treasure your friends and your family. They’re everything. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be.

  Anonymous Female, 17

  Soldiers can suffer from ongoing psychological problems as a result of military duties. These can include deep depression, alcohol or drug abuse, bad temper and severe anxiety. Sometimes these symptoms don’t show up until some time after the soldier has returned home, and may not even seem to be related to the war. Sometimes the symptoms are mild and fade away in a short time. Other times they are more serious, and require professional treatment.

  Anonymous is a young Canadian woman whose family was in crisis after her father returned from the war in Bosnia, where United Nations peacekeepers witnessed horrific violence.

  I’m the middle child. I have an older sister and a younger brother.

  My father is a sergeant. He does search and rescue and is also a flight engineer. He’s been in the military all my life. My mother said he joined up because he saw that his buddies who’d joined got lots of great stuff, stuff that he wanted to have, too.

  He never told me why he joined. He hardly talks to me. Before he went to Bosnia-Herzegovina, he was a fairly normal dad. He worked a lot of nights, so he didn’t get much sleep and that would make him cranky, but that’s normal. We’d still do fun stuff, like go to the beach, go on picnics, go to the movies.

  He was normal, but he always had a bit of a mean streak in him. He used to find it funny to bother my sister and me until we cried. He’d hold his hand over my face until I felt like I would never breathe again. He’d lock me in a cupboard, he’d trip us and then laugh when we fell. Mean things, but they didn’t happen all the time. Most of the time he’d be fine and normal.

  I guess it was normal. Normal for us, anyway. I remember good times with him, lots of them. It wasn’t all just misery. That was my family. That was my life.

  I was twelve when he was sent to Bosnia. He saw things there and did things there, bad things.

  Part of his job was to fly around in a Griffin. That’s a kind of helicopter. He’d be strapped into the helicopter and would lean out of it with a machine gun, shooting at people. He had to shoot at twelve-year-old boys who were shooting at our troops. It was my father’s job to protect our army, and to do that he had to shoot at children.

  He also saw children stepping on land mines and getting blown up. He saw kids with their teeth rotting, kids who were skinny from hunger. Wherever he’d go, these packs of skinny kids would follow him around, saying the few words they knew in English, like “candy” or “give me.” He was there for eight months, and that’s what he saw and did every day.

  It was stressful when he was gone. We were living on base — not this base, another one, in a different part of the country. Mom worked, so we kids were alone a lot. We had to get our own meals and look after the house, and look after our little brother. Mom worked as a cleaner of other people’s houses, so she didn’t want to have to clean again when she got home.

  Maybe because we were getting older, or maybe because he was getting older, Dad was starting to change a bit in the months before he went to Bosnia. He took more of an interest in us and spoke to us better, almost like he was reading books on how to look after kids and was following the directions. Anyway, he didn’t treat us so much like dogs anymore.

  When he came back from Bosnia, all that was gone.

  I remember that he came back really late at night. We’d stayed up so we’d be awake. We were all so happy he was home. We were laughing and jumping up and down.

  He seemed glad to see us. He was really tired, though, and slept for, like, fourteen hours straight. When he got his energy back, we went on a family holiday to the mountains and the hot springs. It was a good time.

  He didn’t talk to my sister or me about what he did over there, not then or ever. I learned about it from my mom.

  Things were going along okay for the first couple of weeks, as he got used to being home again. Then he started to get more and more abusive with my sister and me, yelling at us and calling us names. It was like he’d been holding all this bad stuff in, and had it under control, but lost his control over in Bosnia.

  He became more and more aggressive with us, with my mother, too, more emotionally abusive with her than physically, but he had her on a really tight leash. Things have not gotten any better since then. In fact, they’ve gotten worse.

  Before Bosnia, he’d yell sometimes. Now it’s just military hardcore coldness. Coupled with screaming. He doesn’t say hi to me anymore, or even talk to me. He just screams at me, that I’m lazy, and fat, and stupid.

  Before Bosnia, he would at least act like a real person. Now he’s just this drone, yelling at us.

  My sister left home when she was fifteen. She moved in with one of our aunts. I was glad she got out of it, but her leaving didn’t make things any easier for the rest of us.

  Dad moved from just yelling and screaming to being physically abusive again, hitting me, shoving me down the hallway, blocking me and bullying me. He threatened to flush my pets down the toilet.

  I can’t depend on Mom for anything because she’s so afraid of him. Everybody is. All my friends, all my relatives. No one will talk to my parents. I don’t know how I’ve managed.

  My grandfather did try to talk to him once. He’s a very calm, quiet man, but he really told my father off for abusing me. Nothing changed, but it was nice to have someone on my side.

  Children’s services got involved. We did this big interview with them, but I was too scared to tell them anything. I just cried and denied. We were too afraid of my dad, of what he was going to do after the meeting.

  A week ago, he kicked me out of the house. I’m staying with a relative at the moment, but I can’t stay there much longer. The staff at my school here are trying to help me figure out what to do next. Mom phones me and says, “Oh, Dad is sorry,” and “Dad loves you,” but that doesn’t really mean anything.

  Do you want to hear the funny part? I’m planning to go into the military myself, just like my dad. In fact, I want to go into the same work as my dad, search and rescue. I thought for awhile about becoming a paramedic, but the military pays better, and I don’t really like hospitals. With the military I’d be trained to do things like climb mountains to rescue people, and do other outdoor stuff where you have to be really daring and strong and smart.

  I’ll definitely be paving the way because search and rescue is almost all men. I’ve never met a woman who does that job, although there must be some. I’ve met the other men who work with my dad in the search and rescue unit and they’re all fantastic. Maybe doing that good work will eventually make Dad better.

  There are a lot of men like my dad in the military, men who don’t treat women properly. But the military also offers a lot of support for women in the ranks, officially, anyway. And because of all I’ve had to go through, I’ll never put up with any crap.

  If the military sent me to a place like Bosnia, I think I could deal with it better than my dad did. I’ve learned from his experience. I’d find a way to keep myself okay.

  So many factors went into my dad being the way he is now. It wasn’t just Bosnia. Not everyone who went to Bosnia came home and beat their kids.

  But there’s no doubt in my mind that he was deeply disturbed by his experience there. He came back changed, angrier, and so much more controlling. Maybe he had too much control over people there, and got used to it, got to like it.
Maybe it had something to do with having a gun and being allowed to shoot it. Maybe he felt out of control there, with all the death and the misery and the chaos, and he came home needing to be in control of everything, all the time.

  I don’t know. The saddest part for me is that my sweet little brother has turned into a jerk. He sees the way my dad treats me and my mom and other women, and now he’s starting to act the same way. And my mother’s not strong enough to smarten him up.

  My advice for other military kids? You need to find an ally. You need to have someone you can trust. But that’s really advice for everyone, not just military kids.

  Oliver, 15, Kira, 13, and Jasmine, 12

  Although Canada did not go to war in Iraq, Canadian troops have still played a role in the invasion and occupation of the country. Under a military exchange program, more than thirty Canadian officers have served in Iraq in positions of authority with the US military. Canadian war ships patrol with American aircraft carriers in the Arabian Gulf, and the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) has trained more than 30,000 Iraqi security forces in training camps in Jordan.

  Oliver and his sisters are Canadians living on post at Fort Bragg. Their father will serve in Iraq in a top leadership position as deputy to the commander of the US forces.

  Oliver — We’re Canadians even though we’re stationed here at Fort Bragg. Our father is a brigadier general with the Canadian army. He’s posted here in Fort Bragg to strengthen the bonds between the Canadian and American armies. He’ll be going to Iraq in February for eighteen months. He’s served overseas a lot, in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Germany. Lots of places. Sometimes we’d go with him. I was born in Germany, and I remember living in England when I was a little kid. I don’t remember the military side of England — just my friends and my preschool, the streets and the style of buildings around where we lived.

  Kira — Dad was in Afghanistan for six months. He’d call sometimes when he was away, or email. He came home for two weeks after his posting there, then left for another six months, but only to Toronto, to go to the war college to take his General Class.

  Jasmine — We were living in Quebec City then. Or maybe Ottawa. He came and visited a lot, because Toronto is close — well, a lot closer than Afghanistan.

  Kira — Dad joined the military when he was sixteen. He joined because his mom told him to.

  Jasmine — No, he didn’t! He joined because he didn’t want to go to college and he didn’t know what else to do with himself, so he joined the army as a temporary thing.

  Oliver — He joined so that he’d keep busy until he found something to do that he liked, but he ended up liking the army, and now he’s been in it for thirty-two years.

  Brigadier general is a pretty high rank. He’s saying now he’ll stay in for five more years, but he could change his mind and stay in longer if an opportunity came up that he liked. Two years ago, we thought he might have retired by now, but he keeps finding reasons to stay.

  Jasmine — We live here on post, at Fort Bragg. It’s kind of different, being on an American base. We fly a Canadian flag outside our house.

  Kira — We’ve lived on Canadian military bases, but here it’s different because there are more activities. There’s a youth center and many gyms you can go to, and a golf course. Oliver likes golf.

  Oliver — In Quebec the base is small. There are a lot of people here. It’s like a small city, with restaurants and movie theaters and stores and bowling. They kept a lot of nature, too. Lots of trees. There are as many soldiers on just this base as there are in the whole Canadian army, almost.

  Kira — We just moved here, so our impressions are recent. We have to go to school in English, which we’ve never done before. We’ve always studied in French, which is our regular language.

  Jasmine — We’re on an American curriculum, too.

  Oliver — I like the way they approach things in their classrooms. It’s a different style, one I do better in. Instead of always asking questions, the teachers try to work with you. Instead of always giving you papers and saying, you’ve got twenty minutes to complete it, they’ll help you out a little, give you some clues.

  Kira — In Canada, my teacher would give us an English paper, and she would barely explain it, but here they review everything with us, explaining and making sure we understand it.

  Jasmine — They have a different mentality here about things. I find that’s true all around here, not just in school. Like, if you go shopping off post in the city and you say you’re in the military, you get discounts. In Canada if you say you’re in the military — it’s not that people at home don’t care, but they just don’t seem to — they say, “So?”

  Oliver — Maybe it’s because there’s a war, and people see all the troops getting sent over there, and they respect that stuff.

  Jasmine — We have to do the pledge of allegiance every morning, even though it’s not our flag. I stand up and face their flag. I don’t know the words, so I don’t say anything.

  Kira — I stand up out of respect, like I would want American kids to do during “O Canada” if they came to my country. It wouldn’t be very nice to say, “Oh, it’s not my country, so I don’t care about it.”

  Oliver — The Americans approach their military in a different way than they do in Canada. In Canada they don’t pressure you to join. Here they show you lots of commercials for the army, the navy, the air force, the marines, to show you the opportunities and all the things you could do if you joined up. In Canada it’s just kind of like a job you can get. Here it’s like something you would do for your country, like a calling or a quest. In Canada you wouldn’t really hear it like that. They’re a proud nation down here.

  I’m not saying we’re not proud in Canada. But here, if they go to Iraq, it’s because they’re proud of their country. In Canada you wouldn’t hear that so much. It’s just different.

  Kira — The whole war on terror started with 9/11.

  Oliver — It’s all about who’s going to control what. It started with going against terrorists, and now it’s oil, or something else. Something to do with money.

  I guess the Americans went into Iraq to help the people, but I’m not sure if everyone in Iraq is happy with the Americans not exactly imposing stuff on them, but giving them some ground rules. I’m sure they weren’t happy with the government they had before, but if it’s your country and another country comes in and puts in their own ground rules and changes things, you would be happy in one way but in another way you would not be happy.

  Jasmine — I can’t believe that a human would be so cold inside as to want to start a war.

  Kira — There will always be countries that start wars.

  Oliver — I think it’s part of human nature. People will always want power. I hope it can stop some day, because I don’t think it’s going to get us anywhere, all this killing people, but it’s in our nature to be aggressive and to want power and control.

  Jasmine — It’s like animals attacking other animals that stray into their territory. We’re just like animals.

  Oliver — Some people get manipulated with their beliefs, like their religious beliefs. Some people use religion to control other people and get them to do terrible things. It’s not just Islam. Christians do it, too, like with the bombing in Oklahoma City. I’m sure the people who crashed the planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were working for someone higher up who had ideas and made the plans.

  Jasmine — I don’t know if I’ll join the military or not. I’d prefer to dance. There’s a military dancing team with the US Air Force called Tops in Blue, and they dance and sing and perform overseas. I hear it’s very hard to get in, a very prestigious thing. They go all over, to Iraq, Afghanistan, dancing and putting on skits. They performed at the Coliseum here, too.

  Kira — I thought for awhile that I might go to the Royal Military College in Canada, but I changed my mind. I change my mind a lot. What happens if there’s another war? If I join the m
ilitary, I’ll have to go, and I don’t know if I’m ready. I’d be scared.

  Oliver — I’m sure Dad gets scared, too, but he likes his job. It’s normal to be scared. But he doesn’t let that stop him. He’s doing it for his country, for the people of Canada, and I respect that.

  I don’t want to join the military, but I do want a job that’s going to help people. I was thinking of the police, or Special Operations. I grew up with the military, so I’d like to do something different and new when I get out of school.

  Jasmine — When Dad came home from Afghanistan, I was just a kid. I was small. Mom said we were going to the base just to pick up his stuff, but then there he was, like a surprise! We didn’t know he was coming back then.

  Kira — His hair was a lot shorter.

  Oliver — He was stronger, too, and tougher and stricter. He was over there for awhile, giving orders, and so he was kind of like that when he came home, too.

  Kira — He was really happy to see us, though. He had a big smile when he came back.

  Jasmine — He’ll be in Iraq for almost two years. That’s a long time.

  Oliver — We’ll be staying here in Fort Bragg while he’s in Iraq. Most of our family is in Montreal, so we’ll just be on our own in our own little corner here. Besides, it’s a change. We’re so used to moving around, it’s tough to stay in one spot for too long. After awhile, we’re like, okay, what’s next? We’ve been living in Canada for twelve years. Time to see something different. I’ll probably keep moving all my life, from one country to another, because I don’t like staying in one place too long.

  Kira — We’ve built friendships wherever we go, but we always know we’re going to leave one day soon, so it doesn’t hurt so much when we go. But it’s tough to move from one school system to another. Even from the schools in Quebec to the schools in Ontario, it was hard.

  Oliver — We’re used to Dad leaving us. It’s a regular thing. Not every kid has the opportunity to live in a different country. That’s one of the reasons I agreed to come down here.