Off to War

by Deborah Ellis

  Jasmine — I think the people protesting the war are kind of right. War is a bad thing.

  Oliver — It depends on your family. If your parents are not for war, you will also grow up to be against war. If you grow up in the military, you will probably join the military. It’s just a matter of how you were raised. You can look at the military in an awful way. They go in there, into another country, to invade and all that, or you could look at it that they’re going in to help the people.

  Kira — I think the protesters are right, too, but if we stop the war one day in one country, what will keep it from starting again in another? And if it starts again, it could be much worse than it is now.

  Oliver — I sort of agree with the protesters, because we have to have free speech, but if we stop war, what will we replace it with? They say they want things to change, but they don’t say what they think the change should be.

  Jasmine — There are some big differences between military kids and civilian kids. They don’t get to go down the same pathways we’ve passed through.

  Oliver — Civilians look at the world in a totally different way than the military does. Our parents work all over the world, so we get to learn about the world from them, what it’s like and how it works.

  Kira — Plus, we get presents from all over the world. Dad brought us back a whole box of burnt CDs, dresses, earrings. In Dubai, you can get all kinds of stuff, like gold and white gold jewelry, chocolate, picture frames. And whatever deployment he’s on, he gets a group photo taken with everyone in his deployment group.

  Oliver — We got a didgeridoo from Australia, a hat from Afghanistan. Lots of things. He gave me this watch, too. I wear it all the time because it reminds me of him.

  Jasmine — Military kids are more self-sufficient and self-reliant. But sometimes it’s hard to know where we’re from when someone asks us. It’s like, do you want to know where we were born, or where we’ve lived the longest, or where we were posted last?

  Kira — The American military is much more welcoming than the Canadian military. The day we moved here, people in our neighborhood brought us homemade bread, they made us lunch. They band together down here more than they do in Canada, maybe because they get deployed overseas more than we do in Canada. Base housing is more expensive in Canada, too.

  Oliver — I felt closed in on the military base in Quebec. Maybe because it was in the woods. Here it’s big, there’s lots of room. It’s good for Mom here, too. She joined the women’s golf club, and has friends here. In Canada she was too busy to do that because she was going to university. Here she can just relax a little.

  Kira — After seeing the movie Super Size Me, I thought everyone in the US was fat, but they’re not. Of course, this is a military base, so everyone here is in shape.

  Jasmine — You can have preconceived notions about every country that aren’t true. I was worried that the Americans wouldn’t like us since we didn’t join them in Iraq. I mean, they did that whole weird thing of removing the word French from French fries — Freedom fries, remember that? They have a big if-you’re-not-with-us-you’re-against-us mentality. Their president even said it! I worried that they’d hate us, but people have been very good.

  Kira — I go to a public high school in Fayetteville, where it’s a whole different world from Canada. They have two sheriffs in the school at all times. You can’t carry a backpack, just a mesh bag that they can see through, so they can make sure you’re not carrying a gun.

  Oliver — I go to a smaller, private high school. Nothing gets locked up, nothing gets stolen. Everybody has everything, so they don’t need to steal from anyone else. Football is really big here, too. I’m more used to hockey.

  Kira — My advice for other military kids? Have a mom like our mom. Having Mom around keeps us strong. I know she’s not going to leave us. She keeps saying, “We’re going to get through it,” and she’s always right. We always do.

  Patrick, 12

  The men and women who are killed in combat are known as Fallen Heroes. They are entitled to military funerals, and stories of their service to their country fill their hometown papers. They make up the numbers scrolled along the bottom of CNN newscasts, a tally that everybody hates even though they accept that it’s the cost of doing battle.

  The military encourages soldiers to prepare a will before they are deployed and helps families get all their legal and financial affairs in order. Canada has lost more than seventy soldiers in Afghanistan; the United States has lost more than four thousand soldiers in Iraq.

  Although the US invasion of Iraq removed Saddam Hussein from power, the American military continues to fight insurgents and train Iraqi soldiers to prop up the new Iraqi government. But there is still huge resentment throughout Iraq against the American occupation, and the situation is unstable and volatile. Patrick’s father, Sergeant Patrick McCaffrey Sr., was a member of the California National Guard with the 579th Engineer Battalion. He was killed in Iraq on June 22, 2004.

  My father was Sergeant Patrick McCaffrey Sr. I’m named after him. They gave him a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

  Dad joined the army after 9/11 because he wanted to help the country and keep it safe from terrorism. Before he joined, he worked at Aikens Body Shop, fixing cars that had been hurt in crashes.

  After he joined, he was away a lot on weekends doing trainings, so I sort of got used to him being away, although I never got really used to it.

  I was nine when he got sent to Iraq. He told my mom he was going, and then my mom told me. I didn’t know anything about Iraq except that it was very far away.

  He was killed four months after he got there. An Iraqi soldier he was training killed him and killed another American, Lt. Andre Tyson. They were all on patrol. They were killed on purpose. The Iraqi soldiers were supposed to be on our side, but they weren’t, and they killed my dad.

  At first the army told my grandma a lie. They told her my dad was killed in an enemy ambush, a regular one. My grandma had a feeling that something wasn’t right, so she kept after them and after them, and finally they admitted that they lied. It took them three years to admit it.

  The army thought there would be a scandal if they told the truth because they were telling everybody that the Iraqis were ready to take over and everything was going well. But it wasn’t, so they lied.

  The Iraqi soldiers tried to kill my father two weeks before they did it. They shot at him with rocket launchers, but didn’t get him. The next time they tried, they got him.

  I was in my room playing when the army came to the house to tell us about my dad. I heard my stepmother crying and went downstairs to see her sitting in the living room, and there were the army guys sitting on the couch.

  They told me my dad had been killed in action.

  I didn’t really understand it. My brain couldn’t seem to take it in. They were saying a whole bunch of other stuff and I didn’t really understand it.

  For a long time I was angry at the army and at the Iraqis. Most kids don’t understand it when I tell them Dad was killed by the Iraqi army. The Iraqi army is supposed to be on our side. Two of the Iraqis involved in killing Dad were killed themselves, I think, but I don’t know for sure. If they were killed, it doesn’t help me.

  There were a lot of TV people and media people at our home after news got out that he died. My grandma talked to them. Dad was the first member of the California National Guard to be killed in battle since World War II or the war in Korea, so it was big news. Big news to other people, I mean, not just to me.

  And then there were more news people later because the government said no one could take photos of coffins coming back from the war. My grandma didn’t think that was right. She said my dad didn’t hide when he went over to Iraq, so why should the government hide him when he comes back?

  I think my dad’s in a better place now. If he were still alive, they’d probably send him back to Iraq again, and Iraq is an even worse place now than it was when he was there.


  He went to Iraq so he could make a difference and make things better. He did help a lot of people, too, Iraqis and Americans. Just before he was killed he helped somebody with heatstroke. It gets very hot in Iraq and a lot of people get heat-stroke. It can be very dangerous.

  Me and him used to watch football together. The Washington Redskins was our team. We’d play Xbox and PlayStation. He liked movies, too. Black Hawk Down was one of his favorites.

  He was a really strong guy. Everybody liked him. The US soldiers are good people. People think the United States is evil because of the government, but the soldiers are good people. They have families and feelings just like everybody else.

  I’m not interested in joining the military. I want to play football instead.

  I’m trying to do okay without my dad. I do the things we used to do together, and it feels like he’s a bit closer. I try hard at school, and I’m good at PE. I play football with the Santa Clara Wildcats, and our team does pretty well.

  On Dad’s birthday, we all get together and do something. Nothing big, just something quiet. On the anniversary of the day he was killed we stay inside and do something quiet, too, away from other kids. Away from everybody.

  My advice for other military kids? I don’t have any. I’m not a military kid anymore.

  Mary, 10

  According to the US Army, rates of desertion (soldiers abandoning their posts without permission) were higher in 2007 than they were in 2006. In 2007, more than 4,500 soldiers deserted, compared to 3,300 in 2006. Some of these deserters have been caught and sent to prison. Nearly sixty deserters (or resisters, as they are also called) have gone to Canada, hoping to be accepted as refugees. During the Vietnam War, thousands of Americans fleeing the draft were taken in by Canada, but this time the Canadian government has said that since these soldiers volunteered to join the military and were not drafted or forced into it, they will not be accepted as refugees.

  Mary lives on the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts. Her father, who fought in Iraq with the National Guard, is a member of Veterans Against the Iraq War (VAIW), an organization that brings together military men and women who are opposed to the war in Iraq.

  I came to downtown Boston today with my mother and father to attend a rally against the war in Iraq. I’m the youngest in my family. My older brother lives in Los Angeles. My sister is nine years older than me, and she lives with us when she’s not away at school.

  I don’t know why Dad joined the Guard. He made that decision long before I was born. Before he went to Iraq, his being in the Guard didn’t really affect me. He’d be gone a lot on weekends for training on the base, but he’d be home again on Monday and that was just routine. My life was pretty much normal. My dad and I would sometimes go to the park, and we saw movies together and did family stuff.

  We were all pretty surprised when Dad was told he was going to Iraq. It was in 2004, and I didn’t know what Iraq was or where it was or anything. A lot of people didn’t know. It was a big mystery to most people.

  I remember that Dad went to the base as usual on the weekend, and they told him then. He was shocked. I think he thought that going over there was more a regular army thing to do, not a National Guard thing. I thought that, anyway. But he had to go, and he was gone for eighteen months.

  He missed a lot while he was gone. He missed me turning eight, and that only ever happens once in a kid’s life.

  We were told a month before he left. The day he left, he gave me and my sister teddy bears. Each one had a note that said, “No matter how far away I am, we’ll always be close together in our hearts.”

  We dropped him off at the base and we were sort of quiet for awhile. I didn’t really know what to think. I was sort of thinking, “Oh, my God, Dad’s going to war! I can’t believe it! I don’t want him to go!” Back then, war seemed like something from a movie, not something that real dads have to go and do.

  My sister took Dad’s leaving really hard. She cried a lot after we dropped Dad off. She started to cry while we were sitting in the restaurant Mom took us to on the way home. Mom wanted to take us some place special so we could have a nice supper and sort of forget about what had happened. But it didn’t help.

  I didn’t know any other kids with dads in Iraq. When my best friend came over for the first time after Dad left, she asked where my dad was and I said, “He’s in Iraq.” She was really surprised, but she was also a good friend and helped me through it. I could talk to her, and to my mom and my sister. That helped, but it was still hard, I think because it was so unexpected.

  I really crawled inside myself. Kids at school would say hi to me and I wouldn’t say anything back because I didn’t know what to say. I was going through a really hard time and I didn’t think any of them would understand. After a while of that, they started to think I was strange, and treated me not so well.

  See, I was scared that if I answered them, they might be able to tell something was wrong, and they’d ask about it. I don’t like talking to people I don’t really know about my life.

  I didn’t talk much, and I didn’t do much, either. I didn’t feel like going to the park or to the playground because they both reminded me of my dad.

  Eventually I saw a school counselor about it, and that helped a lot.

  Dad called sometimes from Iraq. They were short conversations, mostly about what I was doing in school and how my friendships were doing. Regular parent stuff. He didn’t tell me much about his job. I learned later he was up in a guard tower a lot of the time, watching to make sure the terrorists didn’t attack the base. I don’t think he ever had to shoot anybody, but he was ready if he needed to.

  When Dad finally came home, we picked him up at the base in the middle of a huge homecoming party. It was so wonderful to see him, but we didn’t stay for the party. Dad said the noise of the party bothered him, so we left really soon and went home.

  When he was away, my sister sat up in the front seat with my mother when we went anywhere, but when Dad came home, she had to return to the back seat with me. The ride home from the base was filled with Dad’s voice telling us about his trip home and what it was all like.

  Things didn’t go back to normal, though. Before he went to Iraq, he used to spend most of his home time in the living room, doing family stuff and being around us. But when he came home, he just sat in his bedroom with his laptop, staying away from us. It surprised me because he’s generally a very sociable guy.

  Then it got worse because my mom started hanging out in the bedroom with him, and then I didn’t have either of them. I think she was in there with him so that he wouldn’t feel alone. For some reason he wasn’t comfortable being out around the house with all of us, so she went in to where he was so that he’d know we were glad to have him back.

  For the longest time we couldn’t have a telephone in the house because the ringing startled him too much. All kinds of noise bothered him because of all the explosions he heard in Iraq.

  Just a few months ago we were dropping my sister off at college, and there was a loud bang from somewhere back in the woods. Dad jumped, and it made me really scared because I didn’t know what was wrong.

  I never ask Dad about it. I’m not sure why I don’t, except that sometimes I think he might yell at me, and whenever he does, I get really sad.

  Mom and I talk, though, and she also says that if things bother me, I can write them down on paper, and that helps, too.

  Dad’s retiring soon from the National Guard, so I don’t think he’ll have to go back to Iraq. He had to go to the base for a meeting recently, and he came downstairs in his uniform, with his hair cut short, looking just like he did before he left for Iraq. It really startled me.

  Both Mom and Dad believe that the war in Iraq is wrong. This is going to be a big rally today because a lot of people in Boston are against the war and are against the president for taking us into the war.

  I’ve been to rallies in other cities, too. We went to Washington, DC. I
wanted to take a picture of the White House but it’s hard to see it unless you’re right in front of it, and I didn’t get enough time to get a good picture. But I did get a picture of the crosses that had been set up with the names of soldiers who had been killed.

  Then there was a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, where they talked a lot about the Iraqi children who have been killed by American soldiers. They put out rows and rows of kids’ shoes and sandals to be symbols of the dead children. There were a lot of shoes. A lot of shoes in Des Moines, and a lot of crosses in Washington.

  I also went to New York City for a rally with my sister. At the front of the march was a group of military people who had come back from the war. They’d fought in it and now they were protesting it. I liked marching through the streets for what I believe, which is that the war should stop.

  And we went to Texas, to the peace camp that Cindy Sheehan and other protesters set up outside the president’s ranch. The point was for President Bush to be reminded of the war while he was on vacation. After all, he got us into the war, so why should he have a nice quiet holiday when other Americans are over in Iraq getting killed and damaged? It was fun. I was the only kid there at the time, but I brought lots of books and things to entertain myself, because nothing but adults can get really boring.

  It really helped us as a family to speak out against the war. We had no say in whether Dad went there, but maybe we can have a say in whether other moms and dads get sent there.

  Adults don’t let kids fight. If I’m at school and I start to hit another kid with my shoe or my ruler, the teacher will put me in detention or something. I’d be in big trouble because fighting isn’t allowed. So why can the president get away with dropping bombs on another country and sending our soldiers to die? It makes no sense.

  Protesting has really helped my dad, too. He’s not so sad anymore. He still has bad days, but it’s getting better.