Leaving for Iraq
On a rainy afternoon this week, as I worked at my desk, I got the phone call I had been dreading for months:
”Anne, it’s me. I thought I better call. I am leaving tonight for Iraq.”
The caller was a young man who became a part of our extended family several years ago when his guardian died, and my husband and I stepped in to help him finish the last year of high school and start college. From the time we met, when he was just five years old and was taken in by an elderly great aunt, he had been a sweet-spirited boy who loved animals, laughed easily, enjoyed friends and believed God loved him. During the years he spent with us, he was polite and kind–if predictably teenagerly at times–and we came to admire his gentle optimism.
Now, as I listened to him calmly detail his assignment to fly first from Germany to Kuwait and then on by helicopter to Iraq, I revisited all my ideas about war and peace, politics and foreign affairs, patriotism and ideology, duty and morality, surge and redeployment. How can he be so calm? I thought. He knows how I feel about war, knows that I mourn the deaths of Iraqis, Afghanis and Americans, knows that I believe in the power of words to work for good, knows I write and speak out for peace.
But this was not the time for that debate. He was ready to do his job…for me, for all of us, no matter the price, no matter the pain. He had entered the Army willingly and was doing his best to be a good soldier. Remembering his childhood and despite my misgivings, I felt proud that after a rough start in a troubled family and an adolescence of losses, he had taken charge of his life and had become a fine young man with the determination to face an uncertain future. What a lesson in the triumph of the human spirit! What an example for the rest of us in how to make the most of our lives!
Finally, the voice on the other end of the phone said quietly, “Well, I better go.”
It was time. Seldom at a loss for words, I realized this might be our last conversation before he faced the chaos of Baghdad. What could I say?
“We love you, and we are so proud of the man you have become. Remember that God cares about the people on both ends of a gun.”
“I know,” he answered, sounding so much more mature than the boy who left us twenty-four months ago. “Thanks for everything.”
Overcome, I whispered, “No, thank you.”
When our hearts are open,
even difficult moments offer blessings!
Learn more about InSpiritry and Anne McCrady, subscribe to InSpiritry Emails
or Contact Anne.
Join the InSpiritry Conversation; Add Your Comment!
Technorati Tags: Iraq Army manhood War blessing surge deployment
Trackback Address for This Posting: http://www.inspiritry.com/wordpress/2008/04/08/leaving-for-iraq/
April 8th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Anne,
I cried.Any anger I had about this war was momentarily appeased by remembering the first time I met Ron.He was having lunch with his Aunt Mary Craig at the tearoom downtown in Henderson.Then I,of course,visited wit him at your house.I was there the day he left for his time in the army.
So many wars have been in my life and so many young people
have I said godbye to as they left home to fight in those wars.
IT NEVER GETS EASIER.My prayer is that RON will recognize the real touch of God—-remember Amber Cox whom God heard cry when I did not.Oma