Winning kids over is something we can help
At the dawn of the 21st century, the immediacy of war can be striking. Communication no longer takes weeks. My son can be on a 12-hour patrol in Iraq in the morning, sweeping roadsides for bombs and be back e-mailing me that evening. That takes some getting used to.
In talking with other parents of soldiers, I find we all react differently. Some stateside family members stay glued to CNN, monitoring the war’s progress for any scrap of information that may allay their fears. Others tune out the news and newspaper headlines completely as their way of handling the constant worry.
Out-of-normal occurrences can be disconcerting as well. A recent after-dark knock on my door, by two well-dressed, shadowy figures, had me instantly fearing the worst possible news. I opened the door steely faced only to find two Mormons on a mission. I smiled greatly and gave out a hearty “I’m a Catholic, but am I ever glad to see you.” Slightly befuddled by the warm response, the young men and I shared a laugh and made prayer promises.
I find myself somewhere in between the read-everything and hear-nothing extremes. I do check headlines, and scan for any word from Kirkuk, my son’s base area. If there’s a particularly bad day mentioned in the paper, with the loss of U.S. lives, I scan for the “Kirkuk” keyword to see if I need to step-up my prayers. Ashamedly, when I see “two Marines killed,” I breathe a sigh of relief for my Army son … but in the next breath I berate myself for feeling relief at the bullet that my family has dodged, but that has tragically hit “bull’s-eye” for two other poor families. Any military life lost should be felt by us all. Clint Eastwood said it best in the movie “Unforgiven” when he said something like, “To kill a man is a horrible thing. You take away all he is, and all he ever will be”.
But the best day of all, even better than e-mails, is a day with a phone call. I just had my first one from my son since he arrived in Iraq three months ago.
We talked equipment, and he shared some good news. All Humvee fighting vehicles across Iraq are now “up-armored.” “Soft-sided” Humvees are no longer authorized off base. Upgrading larger vehicles remains an issue, not for lack of dollars, but for lack of conformity with so many different vehicle configurations making retrofits hard to standardize.
Meals are twice a day. Sounds like a good weight loss plan to me. The weather’s warm, getting into the 80’s as they head to the Iraqi spring. In summer, temps approach 120, making microwaves unnecessary for heating that tasty MRE (meals ready to eat).
The biggest problem is finding clean facilities. There are shower trucks and “bathroom trucks,” complete with grade A U.S. porcelain but unfortunately their condition rivals the porta-potties on a warm Hoopfest Sunday afternoon and the discerning soldier goes elsewhere.
But my son had a request that I said I would pass on the Spokane public. In their daily patrols, they meet a lot of Iraqi kids – kids they get quickly attached to. The poverty is striking. These kids have one constant request. They keep asking the GIs for soccer balls.
For the GIs, hundreds of miles away from a Baghdad Wal-Mart, fulfilling that request is hard. That the request is soccer balls is not too surprising, considering the national fervor over the recent Iraqi Olympic soccer team’s quest for gold. It was their “Miracle on Sand.”
My son Jerry put it best when he said “Dad, if we don’t win the kids over, and get the kids to see we’re not their enemy, this will never be over.”
When he told me that, my first thought was “Since when are you introspective, Mr. Never-Met-a-Clothes-Hamper-You-Liked.” My second thought was “why not?” With so many religious differences dominating the region, finding some commonalities, like a love of soccer, wouldn’t hurt the region at all.
Got a soccer ball for Christmas two years ago and it never made it out of the box? Contact me at Dharding@netscape.com and I’ll kick it to a new continent. Corporations, kick in. Soccer clubs, got any spares? Send me your beaten, your downtrodden, your under inflated, and I’ll make sure they end up on the foot of some Iraqi child who just might smile at his American gift.