A Mother Speaks

[Guest guest]

I received this, yesterday. I wasn't sure if I should post but after some

soul-searching decided to share. This brave woman has captured so well, the

feelings of many mothers' of young men and women serving in these tumultuous,

dangerous times.

 

Dear Friends:

 

Below you will find an incredibly articulate and heartfelt essay written by a

Teri Wills Allison, a woman whose son is serving in Iraq.

 

In the essay, published recently by the San Francisco Chronicle, Ms. Allison

writes:

 

“I know there are military moms who view the war in Iraq through different

ideological lenses than mine. Sometimes I envy them. How much easier it must be

to believe one's son or daughter is fighting for a just and noble cause.

 

But no matter how hard I scrutinize the invasion and occupation of Iraq, all I

see are lies, corruption, and greed fueled by a powerful addiction to oil. Real

soldiers get blown to tatters in their Hummers so that well-heeled American

suburbanites can play in theirs.”

 

The entire piece appears below. Please forward to all of your friends and

family, especially those who continue to believe in the righteousness of our

terrible misadventure in Iraq.

 

Thank you, as always, for your efforts on behalf of peace, social justice and

human rights.

 

Global Exchange

 

San Francisco Chronicle

Sunday, November 21, 2004

 

Mother's view of the war

Battle fatigue on the home front

 

By Teri Wills Allison

 

I am not a pacifist. I am a mother. By nature, the two are incompatible, for

even a cottontail rabbit will fight to protect her young.

 

Violent action may be necessary in defense of one's family or home, and that

definition of home can easily be extended to community and beyond, but violence,

no matter how warranted, always takes a heavy toll.

 

Violence taken to the extreme -- war -- exacts the most extreme costs. There may

be a just war, but there is no such thing as a good war. And the burdens of an

unjust war are insufferable.

 

I know something about the costs of an unjust war, for my son, Nick, an Army

infantryman, is fighting one in Iraq. I don't speak for him. I couldn't even if

I wanted to, for all I hear through the mom filter is " I'm fine, Mom, don't

worry. I'm fine. Everything is fine, fine, fine. We're fine, just fine. '' But I

can tell you what some of the costs are as I live and breathe them.

 

First, the minor stuff: my constant feelings of dread and despair, the sweeping

rage that alternates with petrifying fear, the torrents of tears that accompany

a maddening sense of helplessness and vulnerability.

 

My son is involved in a deadly situation that should never have been. I feel

like a mother lion in a cage, my grown cub in danger, and all I can do is throw

myself furiously against the bars, impotent to protect him. My tolerance for

b.s. is zero, and I've snapped off more heads in the last several months than in

all the rest of my 48 years combined.

 

For the first time in my life and with great amazement and sorrow, I feel what

can only be described as hatred. It took me a long time to admit it, but there

it is. I loathe the hubris, the callousness, and the lies of those in the Bush

administration who led us into this war.

 

Truth be told, I even loathe the fallible and very human purveyors of those

lies. I feel no satisfaction in this admission, only sadness and recognition. I

hope that, given time, I can do better. I never wanted to hate anyone.

 

Xanax helps a bit. At least it holds the debilitating panic attacks somewhat at

bay, so I can fake it through one more day. A friend in the same situation

relies on a six-pack of beer every night. Another has drifted into a la-la land

of denial. Nice.

 

Then there is the wedge that has been driven between part of my extended family

and me. They don't see this war as one based on lies. They've become evangelical

believers in a false faith, swallowing Bush's fearmongering, his chicken-hawk

posturing and strutting. They cheer his " bring 'em on " attitude as a sign of

strength and resoluteness.

 

Perhaps life is just easier that way. These are the same people who have known

my son since he was a baby; who have held him, loved him and played with him;

who have bought him birthday presents and taken him fishing. I don't know them

anymore.

 

But enough of my whining. My son is alive and in one piece, unlike the 1, 215

dead and more than 8,000 severely wounded American soldiers, which equal 9, 215

blood-soaked uniforms. That doesn't even count the estimated 20,000 troops, not

publicly reported by the Department of Defense, taken out of Iraq for

" noncombat-related injuries. "

 

Every death, every injury burns like a knife in my gut, for these are all

America's sons and daughters. And I know I'm not immune to that knock on my door

either.

 

Yes, my son is alive and, as far as I know, well. I wish I could say the same

for some of his friends.

 

One young man who was involved in heavy fighting during the invasion is now so

debilitated by post-traumatic stress disorder that he routinely has flashbacks

in which he smells burning flesh. He can't close his eyes without seeing

people's heads squashed like frogs in the middle of the road, or dead and dying

women and children, burned, bleeding and dismembered.

 

Sometimes he hears the sounds of battle raging around him, and he has been

hospitalized twice for suicidal tendencies. When he was home on leave, this 27-

year-old man would crawl into his mother's room at night and sob in her lap for

hours.

 

Instead of getting treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, he has just

received a " less than honorable " discharge from the Army. The rest of his unit

redeploys to Iraq in February.

 

Another friend of Nick's was horrifically wounded when his humvee stopped on a

bomb. He didn't even have time to instinctively raise his arm and protect his

face. Shrapnel ripped through his right eye, obliterating it to gooey shreds,

and penetrated his brain. He has been in a coma since March.

 

His mother spends every day with him in the hospital. His wife is devastated,

and their 1 1/2-year-old daughter doesn't know her daddy. But my son's friend is

a fighter and so is making steady, incremental progress toward consciousness.

 

He has a long hard struggle ahead of him, one that he shouldn't have to face,

and his family has had to fight every step of the way to get him the treatment

he needs. So much for supporting the troops.

 

I visit him every week. It breaks my heart to see the burned faces, the missing

limbs, the limps and the vacant stares one encounters in an acute-care military

hospital.

 

In front of the hospital there is a cannon, and every afternoon they blast that

sucker off. You should see all those poor guys hit the pavement.

 

Although many requests have been made to discontinue the practice for the sake

of the returning wounded, the general in charge refuses. Boom.

 

When Nick left for Iraq, I granted myself permission to be stark raving mad for

the length of his deployment. I've done a good job of it, without apology or

excuse.

 

And I dare say there are at least 139,999 other moms who have done the same,

although considering troop rotations needed to maintain that magical number of

140,000 in the sand could put the number of crazed military moms as high as

300,000, maybe more. You might want to be careful about cutting in line in front

of a middle-aged woman.

 

I know there are military moms who view the war in Iraq through different

ideological lenses than mine. Sometimes I envy them. How much easier it must be

to believe one's son or daughter is fighting for a just and noble cause.

 

But no matter how hard I scrutinize the invasion and occupation of Iraq, all I

see are lies, corruption, and greed fueled by a powerful addiction to oil. Real

soldiers get blown to tatters in their Hummers so that well-heeled American

suburbanites can play in theirs.

 

For my family and me, the costs of this war are real and not abstract. By day, I

fight my demons of dreaded possibility, beat them back into the shadows, into

the dark recesses of my mind. Every night they hiss and whisper a vile prognosis

of gloom and desolation. I order the voices into silence, but too often they

laugh at and mock my commands.

 

I wonder if George Bush ever hears these voices.

 

I wonder, too, just how much we are willing to pay for a gallon of gas.

 

Teri Wills Allison, a massage therapist and a member of Military Families Speak

Out, lives near Austin, Texas, with her husband. She is the mother of two adult

children, the older of whom is a soldier deployed to Iraq. A version of this

piece ran on tomdispatch.com.

 

 

http://pets.care2.com/

 

" The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. " --

Plato

" Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing

health care to all Americans is socialism. " -- anon