How do they do it?

How do these parents and spouses do it? Waiting around wondering if it was their child their spouse who was killed in Iraq every time the news mentions more deaths.

I have never been for the war in Iraq (Afghanistan made sense and I support it). However, Every night when I watch the NewsHour on PBS and they list in silence those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan I read their names to honor them, their life and their family’s.

I now know several people in Iraq now. One of which is my god-son and nephew. He has been deployed there for only a month. After reading the article on CNN.com today I just got that sinking feeling in my gut, the tightness in my throat. And now I wait. How does my sister do it? or is this the first time she faces it? How do all those parents and spouses do it?

How does a leader send out so many to possibly die for an idea? Others choose of their own volition to die for an idea, good or bad. But I guess those who volunteer for our military have chosen of their own volition to let go of their choices and freedoms, and have others tell them what they are going to do. In a way, don’t we all to some extent.

But I can’t help, but think that some (just some) of the military have been seduced by the ‘romantic’ aspect of serving in the military. I can’t help to think that some (just some) felt they had so few positive choices in their life that the military seemed like their only option for a potential positive and fulfilling life.

I guess what I don’t understand is how people will give up their own freedom and how some readily do it: Both in the military and in civilian life.

Now, if you are so inclined, don’t start slamming me with the arguments. I’ve heard them and I don’t buy it. You won’t be able to persuade me to your side and I probably won’t persuade you to mine. It is just the way it is. We are, however, allowed to have and voice our own (and opposing) opinions. So far, that is. I do fear that some people will try to make it such that doing so will no longer be allowed. Thus, slowly taking away our freedoms and rights. Eroding what we as a nation have believed for so long from this nation’s onset. What so many people have fought and died for.

So those are my thoughts as I sit and wait in a morbid predicament: Hoping one of those dead is not my nephew, not someone I know. Yet, knowing that they are someone’s son, someone’s nephew, someone’s spouse, someone somebody knows. I will grieve and honor them anyway as I have grieved for those others before. But in all honesty hoping it is not one of mine. What a sickening position to be in.

How do they do it? Maybe there really isn’t an answer.

~ by Nyssa on September 7, 2007.