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| Perhaps that is why the veterans I know don’t appear to like Veterans Day. There is no patting yourself on the back that day. There is no celebration. It’s a day when the veterans themselves must stand on our bank of the river to understand what they risked when they risked it. To feel what we feel. And know what we know |
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story...62344&ran=50443
Widows, orphans are left with haunting words
By JACEY ECKHART, The Virginian-Pilot
© November 15, 2003
MY HUSBAND caught me hunched over the coffee table Tuesday morning, crying a river.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened? Is everyone all right?”
I gestured toward the morning news show. I don’t usually cry over weather and traffic. Really, I don’t. But that day they were hosting four young mothers and four young babies. All rendered widows and orphans by the peace in Iraq.
I’ve seen that before. But on this day the host was reading bits of final letters soldiers had written to their families that were published in The New York Times in honor of Veterans Day. One was from Army Pfc. Jesse A. Givens, 34, killed when his tank fell into the Euphrates River after the bank on which he was parked gave way.
“I love you and hope someday you will understand why I didn’t come home,” Givens wrote to his 6-year-old stepson. “Please be proud of me. Play.”
To his wife, Melissa, he wrote: “Please keep my babies safe. Please find it in your heart to forgive me for leaving you alone. … Teach our babies to live life to the fullest; tell yourself to do the same.”
My husband stood watching, arms folded. “Oh,” he said with a shrug. “That.”
Yes, Honey. That.
I got up from the couch and brushed my teeth. Splashed my face with cold water. My husband stood in the other room saying how he hates these morning shows. How he does not know their purpose. How they are just exploiting the day, the audience, the ratings.
I could agree with him. I usually agree with him. We agree on many things. But this is a wide, wide river that runs between us, and we stand on opposite banks. He does not see that he could ever leave a widow or orphans. Not him. He says he is not in the Army or Marine Corps. He says that he is safer at sea than on land.
I know that. When he is deployed, I tell myself not to worry. But I read just the other day about an administrative Army officer sent to Iraq who was killed in a helicopter crash just months before she planned to retire. I know wives who tell their husbands not to tell them when they are scheduled to fly. I prefer to hear about my own husband’s wild helicopter rides well after the pilot settles that thing safely back on deck.
The military does not come without risks. No matter what our service members do, widows and orphans are hard to ignore.
That is why the letters from men who have died in battle — from any war — are so poignant. Not just because they were so young when they died, or that their deaths are somehow more important to us than any war they fought. These letters cut us to the quick because they are proof that at least once these men stood on our bank of the river. At least once their tank poised on the possibility that the bank would crumble beneath them. At least once they imagined a world that kept on spinning without them in it — mothers and fathers and wives and children spinning and spinning.
Maybe it is well that they do not stand here often. They couldn’t do their jobs if they stood over here very often.
Perhaps that is why the veterans I know don’t appear to like Veterans Day. There is no patting yourself on the back that day. There is no celebration. It’s a day when the veterans themselves must stand on our bank of the river to understand what they risked when they risked it. To feel what we feel. And know what we know.
“I will always be there with you, Melissa. I will always want you, need you, and love you, in my heart, my mind, and my soul. Do me a favor, after you tuck the children in. Give them hugs and kisses from me. Go outside and look at the stars and count them. Don’t forget to smile.
“Love always,
Your husband,
Jess”
