Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

December 22, 2005

Dear Army Guys,

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukkah!
(and Joyous Kwanza, Happy Yule, Joyful Mithra, Pleasant Solstice, Glad Boxing Day, Jolly Winter, and Thrilling Secular Gift-Giving Season!) Whatever holiday you care to celebrate at this time of year is fine by me. I am always an equal-opportunity well-wisher.

It is the holiday season here at home and I’m sure you are all homesick and missing your families. Well, don’t. The fact of the matter is that everyone in the United States turns into a rabid and unrecognizably frantic creature at this time of year, probably including your family members.

Ordinarily rational people become mindless consumers incapable of logical thought. They engage in all manner of ridiculous activities, make utterly foolish financial choices, and then try to blame it on their religion. Perfectly intelligent people suddenly and inexplicably squander literally every spare cent they’ve got on all manner of useless garbage. They gleefully fill sacks and bags and packages with a bunch of junk that, a few weeks from now, nobody will even remember having either wanted or appreciate having gotten.

It is, in my humble opinion, an embarrassing spectacle of greed. You should thank your lucky stars to be absent of it this year. This is your chance to capture a healthy dose of perspective. There is something truly disgusting about millions of otherwise sensible people jostling like swine around the sloppy trough of the American mall, grabbing at the cheap commercial scraps of conspicuous consumption in the name of Jesus Christ. Yuck.

My son, your fellow Army Guy, was home on leave in November. We were fortunate to be able to celebrate our family Christmas a full month before my inner Grinch took full control of my personality. It was the most relaxed, fulfilling Christmas of my entire adult life.

It came as a revelation to me that it is not actually necessary to work out a seating chart for the family gift exchange. I discovered that our family can manage without the minute-by-minute “Holiday Agenda” I normally provide via an Excel document. Not once did I find myself standing in the middle of a room littered with wrapping paper to yell, “Okay, everyone, we’re six minutes behind schedule! Each of you has been issued a glass of eggnog. Please proceed to the fireplace for the mandatory ‘warm family anecdotes/humorous stories’ session. If you did not come prepared with a humorous family story to tell, raise your hand and one will be provided to you on a 3x5 card.”

Instead, I was able to relax and enjoy an unrushed, non-stressed, thoroughly happy holiday. And I didn’t even care that all but one string of Christmas tree lights inexplicably failed. Both of my sons were under my roof. Nothing else mattered.

It seems I may have caused a bit of holiday trouble for you, my beloved Army Guys, though. I’m really sorry about sending you the little tiny harmlessly insignificant practically microscopic bottles of holiday cheer. It was a mistake or, if you prefer the military jargon, a “snafu.” I should not have sent you those teeny-tiny bottles of liquid insubordination. Or, more accurately, I should have been smart enough NOT to send one to a certain kill-joy member of your unit whom I shall not name here despite my bitter resentment of his persnickety totalitarian regime.

I’m just kidding, of course. I understand, despite my wish to give each and every one of you a bit of holiday warmth and cheer, that the Persnickety Totalitarian Regime Enforcer was doing his sworn duty to keep you all safe and sound. He was right and I was wrong. Mea culpa.

You should consider yourselves fortunate to have been saved from the sort of reckless disorder I tend to inspire. All hell might have broken loose had you not been prevented from ingesting all .5 oz of the lethal intoxicant I sent, illegally mind you, through the United States mail. Looking back on the incident I am shocked at my lack of good citizenship. What kind of person sends a tiny bottle of holiday rum to her brave soldiers fighting in a foreign land during the holiday season? I must be a despicable human being; I should be sent straight to the brig for having perpetrated such a heinous crime. Honestly, I should be in prison lifting weights and getting a bad tattoo. If there were any justice in this world I would be wearing an orange jumpsuit right now and singing Johnny Cash anthems to inspire my desolate cellmates. (Who, upon hearing my singing voice, could rightfully request that I be remanded to permanent solitary confinement for the mutual benefit of the entire prison community.)

My son, a completely innocent party who is in no way responsible for me or my embarrassing Army Mom stunts, has been telling me for years that, in the military, “shit rolls downhill.” He informs me, often in a pleading and exasperated tone, that he will suffer the fallout of my many bright ideas about improving military practices and morale. “Shit rolls downhill,” he says.

I have never understood this maxim. It seems counterintuitive to me.
It has been my experience that a leader who shits downhill just ends up with a bunch of shitty followers. I have puzzled over this many times and I still can’t figure it out.

But, then again, I also fail to grasp the logic invoked by the idiotic phrase,
“No pain, no gain.” It completely eludes me.

Much Love,
--An Army Mom