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My wildly entertaining letters to my son and other American Soldiers suffering in Iraq and elsewhere...posted in no particular chronological order.

Friday, October 15, 2004

An email from a new but dear friend convinced me to dig up this not-so-plucky letter and post it here today. I never thought I would do that because, frankly, I'm ashamed of this letter.
(Which is why I will now fall all over myself trying to explain the emotions that caused me to write it in the first place, hoping you- whoever you are- will still love me after you read it.)

Staying behind to tend the homefires when a loved one is called to war is harder than it looks on TV. Sure, you're proud as hell, and the Blue Star banner in your window is a symbol you cherish. You try to be unconditionally supportive and cheerful. But sometimes, especially when you've not heard from your soldier in awhile, your constant worry and fear drive you into the arms of the blue monster formally known as Self-Pity. (some of us call him Bob, but that's only because we're on a first name basis.)

Thing is, you've unconsciously built a mental image of your soldier as Super-Hero. (After all, he's putting his life on the line for his country! He's absolutely NOBLE! He's a bonafide SAINT, for pete's sake!) So you find it's a let-down when he's not able to simultaneously save the world and keep you reassured by writing, emailing, calling and, in general, thinking of you just as constantly as you are thinking of him. On some level, you know this is petty and irrational.

But who cares about rationality when you want a letter or phone call, dammit!

At times like that, the homefire you're burning just makes you sweat.
And the simple fact that most soldiers are not exactly Shakespeare (or even Sean Hannity, for that matter) becomes irrelevant and just plain beside the point.
For the record, this letter worked. Robby wrote me back right away. But I still wish I'd never sent it because his return letter began, "Dear Mom, Thanks for ruining a rare good day."


June 17, 2003


Dear Rob,

Okay, this Operation Desert Scorpion really has me worried. Call ASAP and let me know if you are involved in any way. I keep telling myself there would be no need of heavy artillery in such an operation. You’re probably sitting around listening to the radio or something. Just please call and let me know. Soldiers are getting ambushed and shot, and I am very, very upset. I want to know what you are doing. I want to know if you are okay. I am sick and tired of being all “cheerful” and “entertaining” in my letters and getting nothing back from you. (Not even one of my cameras, which I sent with a return envelope. What part of “please take photos and return the camera” do you not comprehend??) Don’t MAKE me write to the CSM.

Do you have any idea of what it is REALLY like for me?? Probably not, so I’ll tell you. I am scared, I am worried, I am on edge 24/7. YOU know you’re okay, YOU know what you do all day, YOU know what it’s like there, and I KNOW NOTHING. I am in tears at least twice a day just out of pure fear and frustration. It gets harder and harder to write to you. I want to be light and keep you upbeat, but I am not feeling very light or upbeat. Frankly, I am feeling heavy and lowbeat. You need to write or call soon, and send me my damned camera.

Shit. I just heard on the radio that another soldier got shot by a sniper. He won’t be coming home, and the sniper got away. Fuck Iraq. It’s time for you to get the hell out of there and come home. I need to get a grip, it’s not your problem how terrified I am. More later.



Later:

Sunday at the picnic Papa wanted to know why you don’t write. I said “Well, I think he’s just not a writer.” That’s an understatement. Why don’t you write? You were bored enough to want coloring books. We can’t figure it out. Here you are, in the middle of making history, and you’re missing a great opportunity to put it down on paper in real time. There are entire books devoted to letters from soldiers in combat. Charlie T. has EMAIL for goodness sake, and he hardly communicates with his mom. You guys have bad manners. And don’t say “I only do what I was taught.” That’s BS, because I have always demonstrated good manners and good communication skills.

Well, never mind. So you don’t want to go down in history or make lots of money in the publishing world, so what? That’s okay, because I’m thinking my letters to you might be entertaining enough to make into a small book, from which I will keep all the profits. I will get a face lift, and you will get nothing. It may be nothing anybody would want to publish NOW, but wait a few years and nostalgia will kick in. People will ask themselves “What was it really like for mothers to sit around day after day NOT hearing any news from their son in the 101st Airborne? How did our valiant American mothers COPE with the constant worry and dread?”

And I will answer them by publishing my humorous and wildly entertaining letters. I will write a witty preface in which I will explain that I felt it was my duty to remain cheerful and steadfast, even though most of the time it felt like I was writing to a ghost. I will write pithy commentary on how we Army Moms of Gulf War II kept sending our boys funny stories and amusing anecdotes long after we’d given up on ever getting our cameras back. That’s just how wonderful and unselfish we all were back in ’03. Our sons were egocentric snots who didn’t give us the time of day, but we soldiered on with letter after letter after letter. Having little to say, due to the fact that ours was a monologue of unanswered non-correspondence, we nonetheless remained cheerful and entertaining. My working title will be "We Were Mothers Once…And Old."

In the afterward I will tell how, when our sons came home from war, we warned every nice young lady who got anywhere near them to run like hell away from our horrid kid and toward some nice software programmer with a HEART. Because a man who doesn't write or call his mother is unworthy, and it would be immoral to allow him to breed.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.


Mommy loves you, even if you are an egocentric camera-hoarding snot.

Much love,
--Mom

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

November 14, 2003

Dear 101st Airborne Heroes,

Tomorrow Rudy and I will visit his Mexican mother. To be honest, I find these visits a bit difficult.

I tend to sit around trying hard to look amused/sympathetic/interested while my mother-in-law rambles on in Spanish- a language I sadly do not happen to speak- about events that seem to have taken place forty years ago. Despite the language barrier, I have cleverly deduced that she tells pretty much the same stories each time we visit. I am not sure if that’s because they are really good stories, or because nothing of interest has caught her attention since 1963. I would think giving birth to my husband, immigrating to the United States, and becoming an American citizen would rate a mention, but, hey, what do I know?

She will be wearing a dressy-dress outfit and stockings, but no shoes. I just cannot for the life of me figure that out. Why get half dressed up and then run around barefoot?

A meal might be served, since my mother-in-law loves to cook. This involves a pre-meal ritual in which we gather around the oven to gaze at the food, followed by a bizarre routine in which a gigantic sheet of industrial plastic is spread over the dining room table. (Presumably, this is to protect the precious tablecloth from potential slobs such as my husband and me.)
Then the hot food will be brought to the table, where it will become stone cold during the next 15 minutes while utensils and beverages are painstakingly sorted out. Once we are allowed to eat the cold meal, I may be called upon to declare my love of tamales for the 100th time. (I really do not love tamales in their blandly sticky native state; I think a little sage or oregano, and maybe some sausage, might make all the difference. But I’m not about to bring the ethnocentric wrath of Mexico down upon my blonde and politically incorrect head.)

At some point in the visit my mother-in-law will likely clutch her bosom, look heavenward, and cry, “My sons, my sons!” Then she will shed a dramatic-looking tear or two into a handy Kleenex. I assume by my husband’s pained reaction that this is simultaneously complimentary and obnoxious. Personally, I am always tempted to clutch my own not-so-ample bosom and declare,
“My sons! My sons, too!”
You know, just to make it clear there are literally millions of mothers running around out there, and some of us actually managed to give birth AND learn how set the table before serving the food.


Perhaps Rudy is equally horrified by visits with my parents. After all, my parents are insane. My dad walks around with an open can of beer in the pocket of his windbreaker and talks non-stop about politics and history. He knows everything about politics and history, and what he doesn’t know he makes up at random. You can tell when he is running out of steam because he will say, “…and everything and stuff like that.” Robby and I always kick each other under the table when Papa says, “and everything and stuff like that.” I’m thinking it should be part of the family crest:

Our Family
And Everything And Stuff Like That

Meanwhile, my mother grills me about her grandchildren. (My sons, my sons!) In tone and content, these conversations with my mother resemble interrogations. Robby and I call them “couch lectures.” My mother’s victims are always pinned to the couch while she extracts information, which she then uses to administer unwanted advice. Always a thrill.

The most challenging aspect of a visit to my mother & dad’s is the dinner-table conversation. Both of my parents require your full attention at all times and they are utterly and completely unaware of each other. They honestly do not hear each other talking; both of them think they are alone in the room with you and the other of them is merely producing background noise. Hence you are forced to try to carry on two completely different conversations simultaneously. Your head snaps back and forth between them as if you were watching a particularly active tennis match. My mother might be telling you about her vile new co-worker while Dad is giving forth on the virtues of the Libertarian Party. Your job is to maintain eye contact with both of them, supply Mom with supportive feedback, and give Dad the impression you know he is absolutely right.

This is trickier than you might imagine. It is easy to miss a cue, or answer in the wrong direction. Let’s say my mother just told you her new co-worker is a lazy, over-educated nincompoop right at the moment Dad was praising free market capitalism. You could easily mess up and tell Mom that’s absolutely the best thing for the economy, and tell Dad you think that sort of incompetence is inexcusable. When this happens, both of them will look at you as if there is something profoundly wrong with you. My dad will shrug it off and say something like, “It’s about liberty… and everything and stuff like that.”
My mother will think you are a suspicious character and she will probably give you a couch lecture at the first opportunity. That’s why it is best to always pay close attention to everything my mother says, and just throw my dad the occasional bone.


Ah, well, enough about me and my kooky relatives. Surely you have your own sources of familial strife. Suffice it to say that everybody’s goofy except me & you, and I’m not so sure about you.


Much love,

--An Army Mom

Saturday, October 09, 2004

November 10, 2003

Dear One Hundred and Thirst Airflung Heroes,

Happy Veteran’s Day to you,
Happy Veteran’s Day Brave Vet-er-ans!
Happy Veteran’s Day to you!

It is 8:30 PM on a Monday and my eleven year old son, Dylan, is playing games on his computer. I can tell because every few minutes he yells, “Awwrrgh!” Then there is a ferocious flurry of keyboard strokes. Then he yells, “Awwrrgh!” again. The only reason I have not gone in there and told him to knock it off is that there is no school tomorrow. We had a four day weekend due to an institute today and Veteran’s Day tomorrow.

Dylan had a rather exciting day today because he was allowed, for the first time, to hang out at the mall arcade with a friend. Yes, my little baby is now a mall rat, I admit it. His friend Austin invited him for what we mothers used to call a “play-date.” Austin’s mom and I just figured out this morning that it is suddenly not acceptable to say “play-date” in reference to getting our fifth grade boys together. Sooo-rrry! See how gosh-darned insensitive we mothers can be? We should be rounded up, taken behind the barn, and given coolness training. We are “drastically,” like, “so lame,” and we feel just terrible about it.

Also, Dylan did not approve of my singing along with my car radio when I picked them up from the mall today. Seems my singing ability is substandard, not to mention acutely embarrassing. But I just know that if those boys could hear me sing when they are NOT in the car, they’d think I’m better than Brittney Spears.

For reasons I have never been able to figure out, my singing is infinitely better when no other person is present to hear me. I’m not kidding- I sound just fabulous whenever nobody else is around, especially in the car. On the highway I am especially glorious. I can belt out the entire “Operation: Mindcrime” album pitch-perfect when Queensryche is cranked up on the CD player. Even in-town driving causes an amazing improvement in my voice. I am often so melodious I feel obligated to roll down my windows at stoplights to give other drivers an opportunity to enjoy my performances with the Indigo Girls.
(The three of us totally ROCK.)

Outside the car, I’m not quite as good, although I do have a certain flair for commercial jingles in the bathroom. My current favorite is the Country Insurance jingle. (This is m-yyy COUNTRY! These are m-yyy PEOPLE! I know them like the back of my own HAAAND!)
If you could hear me I swear it would bring tears to your eyes.
There’s a Lion King commercial that has me convinced I should actually try out for the off-Broadway production being advertised. And when I sing along with the Car X ad I am completely in my element.
(“Rattle, rattle, thunder-clatter, boom boom boom! Don’t worry, call the Car X man!”)
God, I love that song.

My young son obviously lacks the musical joie de vive needed to appreciate my talents and enthusiasm. He lacks other things as well, including a healthy desire to rot his mind with R-rated movies. I am shocked by the Millennial Generation’s ability to police itself.

Yesterday Dylan invited Nick M. over to watch a movie in our newly completed basement “media room,” into which my husband has installed the latest in home theater sound and lighting technology. The boys were trying to decide on a movie that would adequately thrill them with action and surround sounds. I suggested Alien, thinking that would provide a virtual wealth of disgusting slimy things and weird noises. What eleven year old American boy worth his salt would NOT want to watch an insect-like creature burst from within the squirting belly of some lab guy? I figured they would LOVE to get to watch a gigantic drippy-gross movie in the new “media room.”

Wrong.

Dylan wanted to know what Alien was “rated.” (R. Okay? It is rated R, but that is ONLY BECAUSE OF LANGUAGE or grossness or something.)
Nick said it was probably “not appropriate.” He claimed he can only watch movies that are “appropriate.” I doubt Nick could even define “appropriate” if asked. He probably thinks “appropriate” is defined by Websters as:
“a-PRO-pre-AT. 1) N. Having or relating to themes approved and endorsed by The Moral Majority; wholesome and vitamin-enriched. 2) Adj. Not rated R or PG-13.”

I made an argument for Alien in an effort to appeal to what I would have expected was a boy’s natural desire to get a free load of cool movie blood & guts. I wanted them to have the thrill of seeing a really good movie for the first time in our outrageously expensive new home theater. Also, I wanted to watch Alien, and I thought they could certainly handle it.
THEY ARE ELEVEN YEARS OLD, for Christ’s sake!

No joy. They both looked at me like I am some kind of sociopath intent upon warping their impressionable little minds. As I write this, they are probably reporting me to the authorities.
I may be brought up on contributing to the delinquency charges and accused of trying to get them hooked on graphic violence and Sigourney Weaver's underpants.

In response to my sales pitch for Alien, Dylan looked me square in the eye and said, accusingly, “I didn’t think you wanted me to watch any R movies, Mom.”
(Well, yeah, but this is just ALIEN, for crying out loud!)

I finally gave up and let the little pussies watch Jumanji. They loved it, which says something about the future of the American male. We might as well teach them all to speak French and then put our collective American heads in the oven. I worry about this Millenial Generation.
It seems we are rearing a potential new generation of Nazi Youth. All of the constant supervision and organized activity we have forced upon them has turned them into an army of small Brown Shirts.

The Army will just love them, though. They are all about teamwork and following orders without question. They seem completely prepared to embrace a totalitarian regime if it means greater security and less chance of making a mistake. I honestly fear for our freedoms.

Don't trust anyone under 25.

Much love,

--An Army Mom

Thursday, October 07, 2004

10/7/2004

Dear Charlie and Buddies,

My dear friend and fellow lunch lady has a teenaged son embarking on the potentially humbling task of applying to (begging) various colleges to accept him as a student and give him lots of much-needed grants and financial handouts. This is no small task, given the fierce competition presented by utterly ruthless baby-boomer parents, who will do nothing short of trading their kid for a newer, smarter one if that's what it takes to be able to casually say, "Oh, Jason? He's at MIT. We considered Yale, but the engineering program they have just couldn't capitalize on his extraordinary abilities."

Should you happen, at any time in the near or distant future, to wish to attend college at a respectable university you may need to submit the prerequisite Admissions Essay. Thus, I have constructed one for general purpose use and encourage you to blatantly plagerize it at will.

________________________________________________________
A Possible College Admissions Essay
By Suzi Q. Peabody Jones


When I was six months old my parents and I discovered that I have a knack for just about everything.
A precocious infant, I often escaped my crib and ventured into the city to visit the Municipal Museum of Arts and Sciences. Sometimes I simply rode the bus around town for hours on end examining the various architectural styles extant in our fair city from the perspective of my self-engineered public transportation safety seat, without which I might not have survived several serious bus traffic accidents and a city-wide flood of epic proportions. (Fortunately, I had installed an emergency floatation device in preparation for just such a catastrophic natural calamity.)

In 1987 I won the United Soviet Socialist Republic National Spelling Bee as an exchange student in Moscow by properly spelling "entrepreneur" in perfectly accented Russian. By the age of two and a half I had designed and patented my own teething ring, which operates on principles of thermodynamics in conjunction with random motion on a sub-atomic level. It is a little-known fact that my teething ring inspired the initial scientific inquiry into string theory physics.

At the tender age of three I took control of the Tots & More Day Care Center in a bloodless coup. During my administration, Tots & More grew to include 47 locations in the greater metro tri-state area, and operated at an impressive 40% profit margin. Equally impressive was our 99.7% Potty Training graduation rate, due in large part to the success of my Pavlovian Potty Conditioning™ techniques. The grateful mothers of chronic bed-wetters send me fan mail to this very day.

When I was in second grade I discovered my ability to chew gum and mentally perform complex mathematical algorithms simultaneously. In third grade I assisted future vice president Al Gore in inventing the internet. (Sadly, he never attributed any of the credit to me and we are no longer on speaking terms.) Later that year I discovered a cure for Sub-Saharan Athlete’s Foot Syndrome, which was no small feat. I am thus considered a living legend across much of the African continent. My name and likeness are emblazoned upon the soles of many of the most popular African-made shoes.

I won my first Nobel Prize at the age of 10 and used my winnings to finance the construction of a fully-functional nuclear power facility of my own design in a vacant lot near my family home. That same year, the per-share stock price in my Time Travelers R Us travel agency’s IPO rocketed from $4 to $894 in a single afternoon, despite negative media distortions about a few pesky genetic mutations. Coincidentally, my Traveling Circus and Freak Show enterprise was a huge success the following spring. More recently I have discovered the unifying theory of the universe, solved the puzzle of gravity, and proved the existence of God and UFOs beyond the shadow of a doubt.

I have done all of this for the express purpose of convincing someone in the admissions office of the university of my choice that I am worthy of an education beyond the 12th grade level. Should I not be accepted, I hope to follow in some other loser's footsteps, attend film school, and pursue a career as a successful waiter/ bartender/rock band groupie. Thank you for your time and consideration.
_______________________________________________________


If that proves unconvincing, simply manufacture proof that a trace of Native American blood circulates in your veins. Works like a charm.

Much Love,
--An Army Mom

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Sunday, October 3, 2004


Dear Charlie,

Hello! I got your new APO from your mother. Thought you might like to know what’s going on here in exotic Illinois.

Well, I’ve been staring at the screen thinking it over for several minutes now and it seems there is nothing going on here in exotic Illinois. As those cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys in France like to say: the more things change; the more they stay the same.
Or, as we beef-eating Americans like to say: Same shit, different day.

I’m still working part time as a school lunch-lady, although there are certain threats to my comfy routine. There are ominous rumblings on the horizon forewarning the possibility I might run out of excuses and be required to get a real job any year now. Dylan, my 12 year-old, is becoming much too independent for my taste. Now that he’s in middle school he keeps doing things on his own. Without ME! He’s been sneaking around doing his homework behind my back, the little traitor. At first I thought my best defense against this disloyalty was to ignore it. I figured once his first set of grades was reported he’d coming running back to the fold, just begging for more of my brilliant tutoring.
But no, he’s somehow managing to get straight A’s. He’s probably cheating on me with another mother during study hall or some such academic treachery.

This “growing up” phase of his might not be so bad if it were just the homework thing. But he’s acting like he doesn’t need me for anything;
I might as well be a potted plant for all he cares! He’s even got the audacity to exclude me from the bathroom while he’s taking his morning shower these days. I guess my bonding ritual of standing on the toilet in a fog of steam shouting smart hygiene suggestions over the top of the shower curtain is a thing of the past. Last week, when I innocently came in to pick his underwear up off the floor, he grabbed it away from me, shoved it into the hamper, and stalked out with a towel clamped to his groin and a steely glare on his spotty little face. And that’s after I had waited until the shower wasn’t even running anymore!

Speaking of spotty faces, that’s a whole new, and obviously touchy, life event in which I am not welcome to participate. Just try running a Stridex pad over Dylan’s chin and you risk getting your hand bitten off. (You’d think I had tried to pick his nose or wipe his butt.) He doesn’t even want me to make him a healthy breakfast anymore. He insists on eating cereal almost every day, and won’t even let me slice a banana onto it for him. He claims he is perfectly capable of pouring his own juice and taking his own Ritalin tablet. (Seems to me people who need Ritalin ought not be getting all huffy about “excessive supervision.” Come to think of it, twelve-year-olds who use phrases like, “excessive supervision” ought not have needed Ritalin in the first place! Score one for me! Or…well. Never mind.)

The upshot of all this is that Dylan is getting awfully big for his britches these days and it’s putting my low-level job security at risk. What happens when I get laid off from a full-time mom/part-time lunch lady? Do I get unemployment compensation? HA! Instead I will be rewarded for my years of devoted service by being kicked out of the kitchen and into one of those career-type jobs like I used to have where a person is expected to do all kinds of business-y stuff and care about it. I don’t think I can face it, Charlie!

I know what I’m talking about here. I spent seven of the best years of my life working my way up the corporate ladder to become a District Sales Manager for a national bookstore chain. I am here to tell you that being a lunch lady is a much better job, despite the massive pay cut and lack of 401(k). I love being a lunch lady. I work only during school hours, have the summers off, and I am allowed to yell at the customers.
What’s not to love?

The very idea of returning to a “career” career makes my skin crawl with that clammy sensation of wearing pantyhose on a daily basis. Do you have any idea what it means when your employer gives you a laptop computer and a company car? Well, I do! It means you have to spend many precious hours driving around thinking up new and better ways to explain why your recalcitrant customers didn’t buy as much stuff as the company president wanted them to, and why your underpaid employees didn’t get as much stuff done as the company president expected. Also, you have to analyze data and shit. (If business gets really bad, you analyze data. And shit. Ha ha.)

Stupid me, I went around telling everyone (like my financially over-strapped husband) that I would return to a “real job” once Dylan was well on his way to overcoming his learning disabilities and successfully settled into junior high.

How was I to know that would actually happen?

I’m hoping I can get away with faking like my kid still needs me for awhile. If I’m lucky, Dylan will develop some sort of teen crisis that requires constant parental vigilance. I’m trying to be optimistic. Who knows? Maybe I can get him to experiment with drugs or join a gang.

Much Love,

--An Army Mom

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