War

[LWolf]

21. This devastates me.

Maybe because the draft didn't end until all the boys I went to high school had to register. Maybe because my first husband served, and came back socially and emotionally damaged...for the rest of his life. Maybe because my son's best friend was physically, socially, and emotionally damaged in Iraq, and we watched it happen, and tried to be a safe haven when he came back, but he spun out of control and into trouble despite what we could do.

I thought a lot about this when my own sons were of age to join the military. They come from poor working stock. I was still finishing my own education...on loans. I had nothing to give them but love and moral support; I couldn't help put them through college. If they'd decided to join the military for the opportunities offered, I would have supported them 110%, but my heart would have fractured.

They didn't. I'm sure some of it was my influence; they were raised by a person fully committed to non-violent solutions to conflict. By someone who taught them to think for themselves, who taught them to choose carefully where their loyalties lay, to be skeptical of conventional wisdom and peer/societal pressure, to have the backs of the underdogs, to fight smart, and to never engage in a physical conflict that wasn't about direct self-defense in the face of immediate assault.

Still, they are their own men, and they have my unconditional support, always. They know that.

Like others reading your thread, this popped into my head at the thread title, without even reading further; I think I'll post it here.