The one thing that I hope the people will understand after reading my blog is that many families are in need of support while their loved one is overseas fighting for our safety.  Regardless of political views and views about the war in the Middle East the troops are doing our nation a service that requires great sacrifices so that we can continue to be free.  I want nothing more than for the citizens of the United States to remember their troops and be thankful for their service and their sacrifice.

I am thankful to have had this experience.  I really believe that we all have the ability to make a difference in the lives of our service families.  Just remember that they can use a helping hand just like the rest of us.  If everyone says something that is encouraging or offers to babysit for an hour or two while a weary parent gets away for a moment, these families will feel as though the sacrifice that is made is worth it.  As it is right now, it seems that these families go unrecognized for their sacrifice which would make it very difficult to continue doing what they have been for these last few years.

The question that I pose is whether something is lost in the communication that cannot be aided with personal communication?  With cell phones, the internet, video messaging, and so much more, is it possible that people are still able to connect on a deep level without handwriting letters to their loved ones?  What advantages are there to the communication age that we live in for soldiers and their families?

I think that something is lost by not handwriting letters anymore, but a sense of security is given by the instant messaging that we have today.  I know that my sister in law is just happy to hear from her husband regardless of whether it is on facebook or on the telephone.  Being able to know that a family member is okay when they are in professions such as the military is extremely important.  It makes the computer that much more important in our lives when we could potentially hear something from my brother in law in Afghanistan at any minute.  In an age where there is never enough time in a day, this new method is very advantageous.

These thank-filled thoughts should also be focused on those of the past that sacrificed during the many wars that our nation has found itself in.  My thoughts are guided by the women of the 1940′s that sacrificed their time to write letters and work factory jobs to support the men that had been drafted or volunteered for service during the second World War.  One couple mentioned in the book Since You Went Away: World War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front, Edith and Victor Speert, wrote 1300 letters between September 1944 and February 1946.  These dedicated letter writers would commonly write two or three messages a day (152).  Not only were the women left to keep the morale of the soldiers up, but they also were asked to keep the families together.  The were in charge of the finances and the child rearing without a great deal of help or support.

The families of soldiers today still face these struggles, but it receives less notice than the actions of the 1940′s.  These families suffer so much, yet they still find time to be thankful for their own blessings.  One mother recently said,”You thank God that he is home but you always, always don’t want to sound selfish,” she said. “I still feel for the ones that aren’t home, that are still away from home, and their families. I think we all have a special lot to be thankful for, which is that there are men and women still willing to sacrifice their lives for us, men and women we don’t even know. And what else can you be thankful for on Thanksgiving?”  The thing that I ask of my readers this Thanksgiving is that when you go around the table with your loved ones and mention the things you are thankful for, remember your troops and their families.  Keep in mind the sacrifices that are being made for your family and yourself, regardless of your feelings about the war politically.  These families need our support, especially during the holiday season.

Litoff, Judy B., and David C. Smith. Since You Went Away: World War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front. Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, 1991. Print.

Desantis, John. “Military Families Cherish Holidays before Deployment.”  Dailycomet.  Nov. 24, 2009. http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20091124/ARTICLES/911249908?Title=Military-families-cherish-holidays-before-deployment&tc=autorefresh

Levi starts off writing this story for his own mental health.  He was trying to find a way of coping with the horrors that he went through and be able to put the experience out of his mind for good.  I do not thing that writing the story can make the experience disappear or put it aside for the person that experienced it, but I do believe that the it can help to unload all of the memories that haunt them.  This can make the traumatized person feel less bound to the memories and emotions so that over time they can begin to cope and live a “normal” life.

This same idea is true for today’s soldiers and their families.  I strongly suggest that the military families suffering from deployments, deaths, and severe injuries due to the wars in the Middle East seek out a professional to talk to about these problems.  Everyone can benefit from having someone to talk to, but those going through trauma need this help in a great way.  Help is out there and friends are willing to listen.  Tell the story and begin coping with the pain.

The telling of one’s story is very important for soldiers today, as well.  They need to be able to come home and tell their wife or husband the horrors and what haunts them in their sleep, otherwise they will never reach a point of normalcy.  Having a psychiatrist or another medical advisor to talk with can also make the difference for these men and women returning from the Middle East.  They may not be able to physically re-walk their steps but mentally they can take another along with them into the worst aspects of humanity. “Families are only half of the equation, because returning soldiers must deal on a personal level with things they’ve experienced during missions…”, said Anne-Marie Vaillancourt, one of a half-dozen social workers who work at the Valcartier Family Centre to the Gazette for their October 9, 2009 edition.  She points out the importance for their to be a normal routine for the soldier to return to and and for the children to help deal with the absence of one or sometimes both of their parents.

Art Spiegelman in his two novels talk about the story of his father, an Auschwitz survivor, telling his son, Art, the story of trying to stay out of and going into the concentration camps during WWII.  The idea of telling your adult children what happened is a way of keeping the story alive so that no one will ever forget these horrific events.  I like the idea of soldiers reminding their children what they fought for because this will help keep patriotism alive in our country.  So often the history books kill that idea by flooding students with names, dates, and policies and taking the importance of the event out of the context.  A parent that personally participated in the event is better suited to explain the importance of what they did and the children would have a great deal to gain from it when they come of age to understand it.

The battles during WWII were on a definitive front.  The soldiers would move the line east or west, or north or south depending on the particular front.  All of these men knew who their enemy was and where they were located.  There was no mystery to the fighting.  This particular type of fighting has died off with the invention of advanced weaponry that allows the battling countries or groups to launch missiles from greater distances and require less man power.

This is important when considering the amount of time that UK and the US have spent in Iraq.  Iraq, similar to Germany, had a dictator that persecuted innocent people everyday.  Though very few things compare to the Holocaust, it was the right thing to go and fight for the people of Iraq.

This fight is not as cut and dry as that of WWII, however.  The enemy is not recognizable, which makes the jobs of today’s soldiers that much harder.  They are not fighting a classical war either.  The war itself only took a matter of days but the clean up and reconstruction or the Iraqi political system has taken years because of the continuing acts of terror that are unpredictable and sporadic.  These two wars seem to be incomparable due to the vast differences between the two situations.  It would be unfair to both of the events as well as those that have fought in these wars to make such a comparison.

A lie, the lie!  A lie we have been told ever since we were born.  A lie we were told in school, in church, by our parents, by the newspapers.  All day, every day.  It’s the lie all three of you have been repeating tonight with your bloody ghost stories.  Don’t you see?  You’ve all been avoiding the truth, the simple truth that when we die, we die, and that’s it.  Nothing more, nothing left, napoo.  But you can’t accept that can you, and you’ve bought into the lie… And it’s a coward’s insurance; we’re banking on the fact that the men we kill or allow to be killed will be going somewhere else.  That they will be living on. (83)

This point that Jones is trying to make seems very hopeless and dark.  He continues on in the play to insist that they finish the game and that Saunders, the new officer, be the one to choose.  He says, “You must decide – between the three of us.  Lewis with his orders here, Jinkins his bottle, and me… me with my lie.  Who won?  Who do you believe?” (86). Jones points to these three men and the orders, the alcohol, and the lie are coping mechanisms that Saunders must choose between while fighting in WWI.

The reason that I am focusing on this today is because I believe that Jones forgot about the people who keep the memory of lost friends and loved ones alive.  A post from my milblog Life, Love & Truth talks about the death of his sister-in-law from pancreatic cancer.  This is a touching story to me, because I myself lost my mother to breast cancer when I was four years old.  Soldier Jeff Courter says,

And when she is gone, her broad circle of family and friends will live on – her husband, her sister, her children, her grandchildren, her church community. Her memory continues in each of them. And by virtue of that, her love will continue in this world.

I believe as Jeff does.  I think that the memory of a loved one keeps them with us forever.  Every time that I tell my future children about their grandma they will know the love and grace of a woman that they will never meet in their earthly life.  If Jones remembered that one piece of hope he may not have been so lost in the depths of grief for the life he took.  Comfort can be found in the warm and loving thoughts of a deceased friend or family member; death does not have to end the life in the memory of loved one’s.

I would like first to reflect on 1914 and the struggles that Vera went through with the helping hand of her fellow nurses.  She says,

The Matron, whose humane sympathy had already extended my leave, no doubt meant to protect me from the tactless condolences of my former patients, but the experiment was not a success (245).

Though Vera says that the Matron’s act was not a success, she had tried to make concessions for Vera to save her from being constantly reminded of her situation.  She also later describes her friends as getting tired of her grief, but they all continued to stand by her side during her darkest hour.

Today there is a very different story, however.  Most Americans do not stop to take the time to find out about their co-workers lives.  They are too busy being wrapped up in their own problems to see beyond their noses.  That is not completely the fault of the person but it is also the fault of how quickly the world operates in comparison to 1914.  We as a society need to start taking more interest in the struggles that military families are facing instead of prattling on about how much we want the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to end.  Though we all have different political views, we ought to be able to agree to disagree and start focusing on what matters most: struggling military families.

Vice President Biden’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden has made military reach-out programs one of her issues.  On September 22, 2009 Dr. Biden said in response to the current problem that military families face.

“I have talked to hundreds of service members and families in my travels around the country and I have listened to their concerns. As a military mom this is personal to me too – and I am doing as much as I can to raise awareness of the special challenges that Guard members and their families face. I hope to encourage more Americans to think about how they can show appreciation for our military families,” she said.

Here Dr. Biden calls attention to the National Guard, but it is clear that First Lady, Michelle Obama, as well as Dr. Jill Biden have made it their goal to reach out to all families that are struggling due to removed members involvement in the military.  This is encouraging but it is not enough.  Just about everyone knows someone who has been effected by this war, so why is there so little outreach taking place?

It is understandable that the U.S. lacks a connection to the war in the Middle East due to it being half way around the world.  Vera Brittain could at some times hear the war from across the English Channel (274).  This detachment from the war itself is one thing, but we are all connected emotionally to the outcome and those fine officers that are over there fighting.  So maybe instead of busying ourselves up tomorrow, we could take a moment and talk to an acquaintance or a family member that is missing a deployed soldier and make a tiny difference in their lives.

“Dr. Jill Biden Visits New York National Guard Soldiers and Families”, 9/22/2009, New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, <http://readme.readmedia.com/news/show/Dr-Jill-Biden-Visits-New-York-National-Guard-Soldiers-and-Families/955595>

My mil blogger wrote a beautiful poem that shows he is very much in favor of his actions despite the possibility of a painful death.  He writes in his post A Soldier’s Question:

… We are all just like that Soldier
Pain inflicting us each day
Seeing death our final ending
Beauty found along the way

And our suffering is noble
It gives grace if we but see
That we earn each gracious moment
Though but fleeting it may be

Let us focus on the beauty
Let us overcome the pain
Let us find each other answers
For the questions in our brain (Courter)

This view of death is very romanticized, much like Rupert Brooke in his collection of poems from 1914-1915.  Brooke also viewed death in battle to be a noble act because he would be dying for his country.  His poem entitled “The Soldier” says it this way:

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. (Ward,  3)

Death to Brooke just meant that part of the field where he fought was forever a part of England.  I know that there are plenty of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq that love their country but are not as sure about the cause.  My main concern is illuminating the words of Vera Brittain’s fiance when he first read the words of Rupert Brooke on the battlefields of France during WWI.  He wrote Vera saying,

“It makes me … want to sit down and write things myself instead of doing what I have to do here.  It stirs up the old forgotten things, and makes me so, so angry and impatient with most of the soulless nonentities one finds around here.  I used to talk of the Beauty of War; but it is only War in the abstract that is beautiful.  Modern warfare is merely a trade, and it is only a matter of taste whether one is a soldier or a greengrocer, as far as I can see.  Sometimes by dint of an opportunity a single man may rise from the sordidness to a deed of beauty; that is all.” (Brittain, 172)

Here we have the contrasting view of war.  This man does not think that war is beautiful but that he must do it anyway.  He is patriotic but after seeing what he has seen war has lost its beauty and only becomes beautiful again in single acts of greatness.  It seems that these struggles that soldiers face as they fight for their cause greatly change their views and the way the relate to their families when they communicate.  This is true for Vera and her fiance because his letters enlighten her as to what he has seen.  She is greatly effected at times by his letters and the horrors that he must endure. 

Brittain, Vera. Testament of Youth.  Penguin Classics. New York: New York, 2005. 

Ward, Candace, ed.  World War One British Poets.  Dover Publications.  New York: Mineola, 1997. 

Courter, Jeff, “A Soldier’s Question.”  Life, Love & Truth: Perspectives on What Matters Most. WordPress.com. 8/23/2009. http://afghanistan-journal.com/blog/2009/08/a-soldiers-question/ 9/17/2009.

I have two Google News queries.  One is on military families and the other is on military heroism.  Both of these should offer me some insight into military families and the soldiers that risk their lives everyday for their country.  I will be looking for links between these two queries to see how soldiers and their families my view these things differently and my that may be.

My miliblog is Life, Love, and Truth that is a first-hand account of what is currently happening in Iraq.  This blog will help me report true facts instead of relying on news sources to inform me.  This will also help me to understand the struggle of a soldier being away from his family and the people he loves.

And finally, my military podcast is Tara Talks Military Family Resources.  This is a great podcast for those military family members that my visit my blog.  This also gives me insight into what soldiers and families should do to communicate about their lifestyle.