Jessica Scott

As I continue to read Michael Sandel’s Justice and listen to the lectures through justiceharvard.org & iTunesU, I admit a nerve has been struck when the discussion has turned to military service.

The question has been posed: if you own yourself (libertarianism) do you have the right to sell your yourself? Into servitude, parts of your body, your womb. And if you do have the right to sell yourself, are you doing the same thing by either a) paying someone to serve in the military for you or being paid to serve for someone else b) does the government have the right to conscript you if drafting you into the military violates your rights to self ownership or c) letting the market determine who will serve (today’s volunteer army).

Essentially the choices are: Conscription, Conscription with the option of paying someone else, or Volunteer and the illustrative points are comparing the Iraq War with the way the Union Army used a mix of conscription and allowing someone to have someone else serve in their stead.

Of course, this struck a nerve when I hear the upper socio economic kids sitting in the lecture hall talk about how ‘well, the military isn’t really a death sentence so its not fair to say that you will die if you go in’ (true but if that’s the case, why aren’t you serving? Oh yeah, Harvard) and ‘if most people in the military are from disadvantaged back grounds or parts of the country where they can be coerced into serving because of patriotism’ (really? Don’t you mean the redneck hillbillies who don’t know any better than to be patriotic (insert sarcasm here)).

The whole conversation of military service and whether today’s volunteer army is any different than mercenaries – the distain that some in the audience showed for values such as civic duty or patriotism notwithstanding – however, is very interesting. If there is no compulsion to serve, if there is no obligation to provide for the common defense of our nation with your own blood, then are you truly committed to the society in which you live? Granted, everyone cannot serve. A, there aren’t enough positions in the military for everyone to serve. B, some simply aren’t fit due to being sick, lame, limp, lazy or crazy. C, military life really isn’t for everyone (but I do think that everyone could benefit from a little dose of reality that military life forces you to confront).

But the greater question that has been raised is if – as is assumed by the lecture and by Sandel’s book – the military is made up of lower socio economic members of society who also hold values such as civic responsibility and patriotism and a willingness to die for this country, how do you explain people like Pat Tillman? Was he simply noticeable because he gave up a life of luxury to sacrifice, an ideal that many of those praising him could not even fathom? How do you explain men like McCrystal and Chiarelli and Odierno and Petreaus who are great leaders and great thinkers who could easily depart the military and serve in a fortune 500 company making many times the pay they could make in the military. How do you explain the fact that millions continue to serve despite the war, despite the family hardship, despite the ‘risk of certain death’? If the military is no better than mercenaries because we volunteer and are paid, then why is it that people stay? Through thick and thin, war and peace, people stay and sacrifice to continue to serve.

I don’t believe that we are mercenaries but I do believe we, as a nation, must confront the issues about civic responsibility and is it truly ethical if you reap the benefits of this nation and only have to pay a few dollars (in taxes) not to have to give anything up. Hell, when we were attacked on Sept 11, we were told to go shopping instead of changing our way of life to ease our dependency on the very oil that financed the attacks.

I fear that a nation that raises a generation of citizens who look down on those who serve as poor ignorant hillbillies (my words to illustrate the point) who can be coerced into believing in things like patriotism (which then assumes that patriotism is a bad thing not a genuine belief) is losing part of its soul. If there is nothing worth sacrificing for, if there is nothing worth fighting for, then what’s the point? Why is America so great if America isn’t worth fighting for (this is not a commentary on either war but on the values across American society). And if you can simply write a check and forget about civic responsibility, then are you truly invested in the welfare of this nation or are you simply able to get a service without a relationship as Zizek defines money?

I ask these questions because I don’t have the answers. I don’t know that everyone at the Ivy League schools look down on those of us in the military but I do hazard a guess that many of the people sitting in that lecture on justice have the luxury of saying that stealing is always wrong because they have never been hungry enough. I believe they have the luxury of saying that killing is always wrong because they have never seen a good friend die or had to fight for their own survival or the survival of their families. I believe many (not all) of them can sit back and say that a person has no obligation to provide for the common good of the nation because they have never been put in a situation where they have to work together TO SURVIVE.

Ethics and philosophy are fascinating. I love the subjects. But I think at a certain point in human life, when desperation and fear and hunger are the overriding factors influencing your decisions, those discussions may become irrelevant. Maybe I’m wrong. I know I’ll still enjoy having the conversations and listening to the lectures. I’m learning a lot.

And as always, it’s a good debate.

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I saw this post on Twitter and decided that it needed to be addressed. So of COURSE I’m going to address it. Below is the link as well as the text to the original article and after that is my response.

Community Advisory Board: Everyone needs to soldier on

By Martha J. Sisk

Call me bitter, jealous or hardened if you like, but this new way of saying that our soldiers and their families are “sacrificing” just because the soldiers are in Afghanistan is a bit over the top. In my mind, the only families who are sacrificing are those who have lost a loved one to death in the wars in which we seem to be perpetually involved, or, soldiers who suffer from maiming injuries, either physical or mental.

My husband, Tom, asks if we, as a nation, have become so weak that we now must support military families with the results of mid-summer toy drives and stories about families’ “sacrifices” on TV so that the soldiers serving in Afghanistan or Iraq (or any of the other nations) won’t have to worry. Worry about what? Have we become a nation of complainers?

I can assure the reader that when my husband’s unit was under attack in Vietnam, the last thing on his mind was the quality of life his family in North Carolina was living. Hopefully today’s soldier is not different.

Vast opportunities

Tom was a soldier for more than 20 years, and those were good years. We never considered it a sacrifice – his being in the Army, even his being in Vietnam. We traveled around the United States and were privileged to live in many different states and to savor the various living styles those diverse states offered.

Let me give some examples. We lived in Texas, where we saw cows grazing in our front yard and ate rattlesnake and authentic Mexican food; Colorado, where we first became involved with Little Theater and viewed Pike’s Peak from our kitchen window; Kentucky, where our oldest attended first grade, (and we still have a blue Kentucky license plate on the garage wall); and Alabama, our very first military station. We always took advantage of travel and saw many places of interest we would not have otherwise seen. Was it sometimes lonely? Yes it was, but it also was inspiring and energizing.

We were stationed in Germany two times. The first time, from 1964 to 1966, we were fortunate to live on the German economy, where I shopped in German meat markets, farmer’s markets and dairies for our food. Where was the sacrifice? While there, I even tried some raw milk simply because my neighbors on Krautgarten Strasse were using it. I learned to speak German with such authenticity that no one I spoke to believed that I was American.

Even when Tom served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, neither of us considered his being in Vietnam a sacrifice. It was our life, and while the children and I missed him terribly, and he missed being at home, his fighting for our country was considered his job – he was a military man, and being in Vietnam was his duty. To earn money, I got a job in a hospital as an emergency room admitting clerk, and we never got toys for our children unless we paid for them. But sacrifice? I never even considered it.

On a historically sad note, when Tom came home from Vietnam that August of 1968, he was so concerned that people would view him negatively that he refused to wear his uniform.

Acceptance

Soldiers from World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam were sent overseas with little or no help from the military for the families left behind; consequently, families coped the best way they could. Tom’s mother told me that while her husband, Ed (Tom’s father), served in World War II, she lived in a hotel for a while, working as a night clerk so that she could pay for the room she occupied with her two boys because she had little money. It was just what she did to have a place to live while Ed was fighting.

She never considered anything she had to do as a sacrifice – and neither did Ed. He was a soldier for more than 30 years, and World War II was just part of his service. The fact that he was overseas for three consecutive years was not even considered a sacrifice because all soldiers were sent overseas for the duration of the war. They knew that when they signed up or when they were drafted. If they were already members of the military, they accepted it.

My husband’s parents never even mentioned the word “sacrifice” when talking about those years. That was the way it was. My question is this: Were the people in previous wars more rugged than today’s soldiers and families are? Our country was built on self-reliance. We seem to have lost that, becoming a nation of whiners in the process.

I am aware that soldiers today must endure numerous unending deployments and it is something we did not suffer. Remember that today’s military is 100 percent volunteer. Military families experience a different life from civilian families and, although military life is sometimes hard, with constant change and frequent deployments, it is also exciting and joyful.

Had I remained a Concord native, I most likely would never have lived the rich and varied life I have. Therefore, here is a big “thank you” to the military for allowing Tom and me and our three children to have such wonderful and diverse experiences. The military made us what we are; it will define today’s soldier and his or her family, too.

Martha Sisk is a member of the Observer’s Community Advisory Board, which meets regularly with the editorial board to discuss local issues and contributes op-ed columns. She is a retired special-education teacher and a retired English instructor from FTCC. She is involved with the arts community in Fayetteville

Ms Sisk,
Your post misses a couple of critical points. During the previous wars, there was little to concern for military families because military service was largely compulsory. Men had no choice but to register with the Selective Service and many were called to service against their will, especially during Vietnam.

The focus on military families has occurred over the generation since the all volunteer service was implemented simply because now, the norm IS a soldier with a family. During those previous conflicts and previous generations of soldiers, military families were the exception, not the norm that it is today.

The simple fact is that a family’s well being is critical to whether or not quality soldiers remain in the military. THAT is why we care about quality of life. THAT is why we have family readiness groups to help young, inexperienced spouses handle everyday life while their soldier is off to war. We want to retain good, quality soldiers because, as you pointed out, this is an all volunteer force.

Despite your husband’s service, you obviously have no idea what its like to be half a world away and worry about a child with a fever or a child struggling with schoolwork or a spouse so overwhelmed that she can’t leave the house. You have no call to suggest that our soldiers and our soldiers families are not sacrificing as we as a military enter our TENTH year of constant war. No recent war has gone on longer. No group of soldiers has faced a more steady stream of combat. No soldier’s children have ever faced the constant on again off again rotation of their parents heading into COMBAT. A combat tour is not the same as going to Korea for a year long hardship tour. A combat tour damn sure isn’t the same as living in Germany for a couple of years and learning to speak German fluently.

Have a care how you tread on the notion of sacrifice. Congratulations, you’re tougher than many but your years as a military spouse were different than the years faced by this generation of spouses. You state in your article that your husband served in Vietnam from 1967-1968. I applaud your husband for his service but I wonder if you might look at the sacrifice our young soldiers are making if he had been gone every other year for four, five, six or seven years. Would you allow yourself to say, man, this is tough? Just maybe?

Our military families are cared for because the strain of constant deployments – something that no previous generation in the last 100 years has had to deal with – is a sacrifice. And still spouses wash the uniforms and kiss their soldiers goodbye so that people like you, who enjoyed the Pax Americana of the Cold War, can say that we are a nation of complainers.

Bravo. I applaud your willingness to join those who spat on your husband and his peers a generation ago by spitting on the notion that our soldiers and their families are not sacrificing today. I hope you’re proud and you achieved your goals. Your thanks at the end of your piece is paltry and hollow. You should have saved your breath, but I will don my uniform and defend your right to say it.

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Well, today was the day. I’ve got to tell you, looking at myself wearing those captains bars is REALLY weird. I mean, really. I already talked about what I thought this meant yesterday but today, thought I’d do a rare thing and share some photos. Hope you enjoy!

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Today, 15 years ago, I stood in the parking lot of my high school and kissed my family goodbye, heading to the Portland, Maine MEPs station to enlist in the Army. Getting to August 25 was a challenge for me. The Army hadn’t wanted the little fat girl so I had to get in shape if I’d wanted to do this. So I did and I headed out, enlisting as a little Private E2 with a pair little tiny mosquito wings pinned on my collar.

15 years later, I’m no longer a private and I feel like I’m a lifetime away from that eager kid who joined the Army because she didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up. Tomorrow morning, my former brigade commander, my husband and my daughters will promote me to captain. If you would have told me I was going to someday be a captain, let alone married with two kids and happy about all that, I’d have asked you what you were smoking.

I don’t think any of us really know where life is going to take us. I always laughed when people told me their plans when I was a kid. I’m going to college to study this or that. Or I want to do this when I grow up. I really had no idea about any of that. I really did sign up just because I figured it couldn’t hurt, what’s the worst that could happen. But over the years, I’ve learned and I’ve grown and there are certain retired CSMs still around to kick me in my ass and remind me of when I was a smart mouth private. Turns out, that smart mouthed private was just as smart mouthed lieutenant. But I never said I was good at making friends and influencing others.

All that is changing tomorrow. Not so much with pinning on captain, though, I’ve got to say, I am happy to finally not be assumed to be stupid by getting rid of that lieutenant bar. On the other hand, I’ve gotten used to being called LT. Or XO. When I first commissioned, I had real problems being called ma’am. You’ve got to remember, I spent 12 years enlisted, almost 11 of them as an NCO. You NEVER call an NCO ma’am or sir. Ever. So that was a big mental leap for me in my transition to becoming an officer and setting aside some of my NCO tendencies. Tomorrow, another one comes.

Because tomorrow isn’t just about becoming a captain and pinning those shiny rail road tracks onto my stetson. A few weeks after that, I become a commander and the looming responsibility and the potential for screwing up of epic proportions is weighing on me. I realize that as the commander, I’m responsible for everything my soldiers do and don’t do. I owe them the very best that I can give them, nothing less than 100%. I owe them the training and the leadership that will take us through the next deployment. That is my responsibility and its not one that I’m taking lightly. I’ve watched over the last few months how my husband has changed since becoming a first sergeant. The responsibility is heavy but I read somewhere that great responsibility gravitates to the shoulders that can carry it. I don’t know if that’s true in my case, but I’m going to do my best to make it so.

The charge to lead soldiers is not an easy one. It is not one that someone is born to. At least, not most of us. Most of us are grown and trained and developed. All captains don’t get a shot at command. I’m fortunate to have a battalion commander who thinks I’ve got what it takes. I won’t let her down, but more importantly, I won’t let my soldiers down.

Because at the end of the day, its about our soldiers, not about me or what I wear on my chest. It’s about them. How can I make a difference in their lives and make the Army a better place? The day I stop believing that is the day I need to retire.

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Every so often, an article or information comes at you from a unique place. I don’t subscribe to Vogue magazine. There is nothing in its 400 plus pages of advertising that I find even remotely interesting. It doesn’t draw my attention in the check out counter at the grocery store. True, there are often some good articles buried within the bulimic looking mannequins that are supposed to be icons of fashion but I really couldn’t be bothered to hunt for them every month amid mass advertisements for mascara or Prada. Not that I don’t like those things. I do. I just don’t read about them on a regular basis. I suppose that Vogue is for women what Playboy is for men. We really are reading it for the articles. No really.

So when my agent emailed me and told me about an article on soldier mothers, of course I went out and bought it. This thing weighs a ton and true to the few copies I’ve read over the years, mostly on overseas flights, there were a ton of advertisements. But the article that caught my attention was Bye Bye, Baby by Elizabeth Rubin and I’ve got a few comments on it (really did you expect anything less?).

First, the author repeats the media truism that Alexis Hutchinson is a poor, exploited victim of an Army that simply doesn’t care about family life. If you remember, Hutchinson was arrested and charged with missing movement, dereliction of duty, absent without leave and insubordinate conduct. Note that none of these charges was her failure to have a family care plan. She was ultimately separated from the military in lieu of court martial and, according to the Press Release issued by Fort Stewart, admitted to lying about her family care plan. So was she really a victim of the evil Army attacking a poor single mom or was she trying to avoid doing her duty? Only she knows but the Army’s investigation reveals that the case is not as the media presented it to be.

The reason I take issue with the media portrayal of Hutchinson’s case is that it is complete and utterly misleading the public on the realities of mothers in the military. When single mothers enlist, they must voluntarily give up custody of their children to someone else. When a female soldier becomes pregnant, she must have a valid family care plan 90 days prior to the scheduled birth of her child and KNOWS that she is required to fulfill her obligations as a soldier. Every single mother on active duty knows that it is not a question of if she will have to leave her children, but when and still we serve. In fact, there has been no mass exodus of women leaving the military due to pregnancy since the wars began. According to the Defense Manpower Center statistics, since 2001, the numbers for pregnancy separations have remained relatively steady on average around 1500.

There are significantly more men separated for a variety of other reasons every year. And yes, that include percentages as well. The Army doesn’t just randomly court martial people for no reason and not having a family care plan is not a court martialable offense. Dereliction of duty, however, is.

The second issue that I have with Rubin’s article is that she incorrectly states that the Army only gives 4 months of nondeployable time after the birth of a child when in fact, the Army policy is in fact 6 months. Is this still woefully inadequate for the mother of a newborn? Absolutely. But if you’re going to write an article about how terrible the Army is to new mothers, its important to at least practice some Google-fu before hand and make sure the facts are accurate.

The third thing that actually has me the most irate about the Vogue article is the statement, highlighted in a call out box that says “Not even the Soviets, the Israelis, or the Iraqi Baathist have sent mothers of infants and toddlers to the front lines like we do.”

First off, comparing the Israeli army to the Soviets and the Baathists is offensive in too many ways to count. The Israeli army is often held up as a paragon of coed combat when in fact, women are not in the infantry there any more than they are in the infantry in our own army. But stating that our Army is somehow “exploiting the blanket mandatory deployment because we need bodies to feed the global military machine” clearly shows the authors bias against our military and our current wars. Comparing our army to the Soviets and the Baathist is a cheap tactic that not only undermines every single value the Army holds up as a virtue, it also devalues the soldiers that make up this great Army and is willing to guard the gates so that you can go about your business buying shoes or purses and ignoring the capitalist reality that buying said purse has on the world around you.

There are, however, facts in Rubin’s article that I agree with. We don’t know the long term impact on the children of their mothers being gone and the evidence that is starting to be gathered suggests that some children will have long term challenges while others will be fine. And I can also relate to the experiences of one of the mothers in her article, when she says she’s short on patience and has difficulty reintegrating. I do believe that mothers have a harder time coming home than fathers do because our role in our families is different. Not better, not worse. Different. Rubin’s article also does a brilliant job of depicting how mothers deal with combat situations and how they relate those experiences in war to when they come home.

There are entire academic papers, both within the military and without, that argue the role of women and mothers in the military. Arguing that the 6 month non deployable status is too little ignores the operational needs of the war fighting units that have been on back to back to back deployments since 2001. Women in the military are expected to do their jobs, just like our male counter parts. THAT is equality.

Arguing that new moms should get a longer nondeployable period is great for mothers and for retaining some of these young women in the force. We NEED good soldiers on Rear Detachment so leaving some of these leaders back to care for their children and ensure that the soldiers left in the rear have good leadership is one argument for giving new mothers longer non deployable time. But we have the luxury of having this debate now as the war winds down. We did not have this luxury two, three or four years ago at the height of Iraq and as Afghanistan heats back up, we must never forget that our soldiers are STILL at war and THAT must be our focus.

At the end of it all, Rubin uses these women’s stories to paint a failed or failing picture of the conflict in Afghanistan. She starts the article talking about military moms but ends it talking about American resolve. I don’t believe she was being malicious in her article, but I do believe she used the soldiers’ stories to serve her own agenda, just as any reporter or writer does.

I simply abhor the fact that she once more held Hutchinson up as the poster child for military moms when there are thousands and thousands of us who do our duty and still try to be good moms. I abhor the fact that she compares our army to the Soviets and the Baathists, as if somehow implying that our army is forcing mothers to choose this life and is sending them to the front lines with a gun to the back of their head.

Mothers on active duty have a choice to serve or not. No one forces them to raise their right hand and when the Army pays for the birth of your child, gives that child healthcare and pays you to help put a roof over that child’s head, all the Army asks is for you to do your part. It is all we all do. The Army is not a welfare state. We have rules that clearly lay out what we as mothers must do to serve.

So please, stop acting like we’re exploited victims of the evil male Army. Accept that we are here because we choose to be here, with all that entails for our families. We are responsible for our choices, just as our male counterparts are. THAT is what feminism is about.

The power to choose our paths through this world, just as any man can choose his path.

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Last year, I was sitting in Iraq, crying my eyes out as my little girl came home from her first day of kindergarten. I remember sitting in my CHU, listening as my mom held her on her lap. She wouldn’t talk because she was exhausted from school. I could practically see her curled up on my mom’s lap on the porch, just listening to my voice and my husbands voice from halfway around the world.

When we came home from Iraq, she started a new school, halfway through the school year. Within a day, she hated school, hated going, didn’t want to get up in the morning. All of it. I won’t lie and tell you coming home and getting her back into school down here in Texas was easy. It wasn’t. in fact, it was pretty close to hell. My husband and I thought about pulling her out of Kindergarten and back into pre-K. We thought about getting her tested. We talked about counseling.

All my little girl needed was some time. Through working with her teacher, truly a gift that year, we managed to get through it. She’d send home notes or emails and I’d reinforce what was going on in school. And she did it. I am so freakin proud of my little girl for getting through that. I know thousands of military kids go through stuff like that every year but you know what? Those aren’t my kids. Mine was the one I was worried about.

So this year, getting to be here and walk her into her classroom this morning was a very big deal for us. And for her too. She was all smiles, and very excited to go. There was only one girl in her class from last year (I admit to being disappointed that she didn’t end up in class with her best friend from last year but she’ll be okay) and I love her teacher. But thinking back on last year and remembering how upset I was that I missed it makes the coming year so much more special. Missing her first day of school was by far one of the worst days I had over there. And being here for it this year was so precious. My little one, however, remains grumpy that she’s not starting school this year but she’ll be okay. Of that, I’m certain.

For us military moms and dads, there is so much over the last decade that we’ve missed out on. Some moms have deployed only once and have been fortunate to be there for their kids. Other moms have deployed back to back since 04 or 01 and haven’t caught a break. And neither have the dads. Its tough to maintain a sense of family when one half of the family is gone every other year. But this is what we do. Its part of the sacrifice that we make when we raised our right hand and either commissioned or enlisted or in some cases, both.

So don’t pity us. Don’t act like military moms are victims of some male misogyny when we have to deploy away from our families. Don’t hold up women who deliberately shirked their duties as soldiers as some kind of martyr for military moms. We’re here because we want to b here and we do our jobs, just like everyone else.

Its just that sometimes, we close the door to our CHU and cry our eyes out because we missed a first day of school, or a birthday, or some other milestone that will only be lived through pictures. It hurts and sometimes, you have to let the hurt out. And then you put it away and get back after it because the soldier to your left and right needs you to have your head in the game.

And it makes those milestones that you are home for just that much more special.

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I’ve never been to an RWA Conference but last year, I heard that Laura Kinsale was giving away ARCs of Lessons in French. It turns out, she was giving away a teaser chapter and she graciously contacted me and sent me a digital copy of it while I was deployed. Then, she sent me an ARC of the actual book once it was printed up. The absolute graciousness of Laura ha extended beyond that first contact but it was a squee worthy moment for me downrange and remains one that I smile about now (my husband had no idea why I was so happy when that book came in the mail).

I kept that ARC and every other ARC or books that authors personally sent me that I received while I was downrange. I would never sell them on eBay because I believe that’s a violation of the intent behind the ARC concept plus it would violate any relationship and trust between me and the author who was gracious enough to go out of her way, trudge to the post office, and ship it to me over there. And the books my good friend Lexi Connor stood in line to get for me are on my keeper shelf because she was willing to do that for me and because the authors were completely awesome in letting her get a copy for herself and me.

Now that I’m home from Iraq, I’ve done quite a few give aways on my blog. I enjoy giving away books that I enjoyed or that the author herself has wanted to give away. I like doing just a little bit to pay it forward and help promote authors works that I enjoy. I don’t review because books I feel like my opinion is subjective and something I might not have liked, someone else might have loved. But I enjoy sharing what I truly loved. (I’m really excited about getting to give away an ARC of When Blood Calls by J.K. Beck a week or so after nationals. Ok, shameless plug over).

And there are a whole lot of books I’m hoping to get, either at the literacy signing or at the books signings. These are authors I want to read and books I am dying to get ahold of. I’m not going to be that rude, inconsiderate, selfish person walking through the book signings, cutting in line and saying oh I don’t want the autograph. For authors I want to meet and books I want to read, I’ll wait in line.

Here’s the thing I’m wondering. If I ask the author’s permission to give away the ARC on my blog when I’m done with it, is that acceptable? I mean from an ethical point of view, if the author okays it, then it should be fine, right? Obviously, if an author says no, I wouldn’t dream of doing it.

But what is acceptable handling for books received at RWA? Do you give them away? Is it acceptable to give them away on a blog or website? How about run a raffle for charity and the books at the prize?

I’m just asking in advance because, though I have zero solid plans (as in nothing scheduled but toying with ideas) to do any of these things at the moment because I’m completely overwhelmed by planning for this trip to begin with, when the dust settles in August, I’d like to have a good feel for what I can and should do.

Any suggestions, advice or otherwise?

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I’ve blogged a lot about my experience in Iraq with some of the folks I’ve worked with. I’ve also been honest with you about some of my failures, both as a leader and as an officer. But at the end of the day, my failures in those situations, my decisions to act or not act for whatever my justifications, were my decisions and my failure has weighed heavily on my heart.

The second and third order effects of my failures are that some people in the army have gotten promoted due to my unwillingness or inability to fall on my sword.

A few weeks ago, I had a phenomenal opportunity to sit down with my former brigade commander and pick his brain about my future as a company commander. In the hour and a half that he sat with me, we talked about some of the things that went wrong and some of the things that he saw that I had not. A hard lesson I had to learn as I’ve come through the ranks is that the people above me making decisions have access to information I do not have and he saw things at his level that I simply did not and even if I did, we would not have seen the same things.

When we talked about NCO/officer relationship, I confessed to him where I failed. I told him explicitly what I did and why I did it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to look into the face of a leader you respect and admire and look up to and tell him how badly you screwed up? And to watch the disappointment flicker there when he told me how many weak words I’d just used?

Yeah, it sucks. And you know what else? He didn’t cut me any slack. He told me point blank that the action I took probably result in that individual being promoted. Maybe even being my first sergeant. He laid it out for me. And then he said get over it. Did you learn from it? I said yes. He then laid out for me that some fights are worth lying on your sword for, some are not but that I made the best decision I could at the time and that other people had a vote. It was not only my decision that sent that NCOER through.

It was truly cathartic for me to admit what I’d done and where I failed. I’ve carried around that failure with me for a year now. That NCOER was mostly the truth but it was better than it should have been. But I also learned a powerful lesson and when he explained to me that no relationship is static, they are constantly in flux and subject to assessment, I had an epiphany as to where I’d failed. I’d failed to constantly adjust and redefine right and left limits in that specific relationship.

So I’ve finally found a way to let go of the guilt I’ve been carrying around inside me for this. It was not an absolution but a way of finally learning what I was supposed to from that whole experience. Because for the life of me, before I’d talked with my former commander, I had no idea what I was supposed to learn from what, in my mind, was one of the biggest mistakes as an officer I’ve made to date.

I understand so many more things now but with that understanding comes new expecations. It’s like one burden has been lifted, replaced by a new responsibility to live up to the things he taught me.

I’m so incredibly lucky to have been part of this brigade and have this brigade commander to step on my neck. That sounds funny but he demanded more from me than I ever thought possible and sometimes more than I thought was fair. But he held me to a high level of performance and he told me I’d lived up to his expectations.

Hearing that? Well I can’t really explain how that made me feel.

It made a lot of the painful lessons of the last two plus years worthwhile. I understood his intent very clearly from the moment he told me what had happened to him in Sadr City. I knew what his intent was for communications in his brigade and I busted my ass to make that happen. I didn’t always succeed but I never quit.

I was meant to go through that pain to learn those lessons. Finally, I understand some of the things that have been driving me absolutely nuts. And I’ve had the opportunity to be influenced by one of the strongest leaders I’ve ever met in my entire career.

I hope the signal world is ready for some venom because that was his charge to me as I leave this brigade and head back to my roots in the signal corps. But I’ll never forget where I come from or the foundation that was laid for me as an officer in my brigade.

Oh and I’m completely borrowing one of his sayings. I will freely admit to it right here: Don’t Mistake My Passion for Anger.

This ought to be interesting.

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As many of you know, I occasionally dip my toes into the waters of commenting on policy or major media events about our government. I don’t do it often because as an officer, I’m held to a higher standard and sometimes that means keeping my mouth shut (you have no idea how much of a challenge that truly is).

Anyway, for the last two days, we’ve been watching the talking heads in the media pick apart the Rolling Stone profile of GEN Stanley McCrystal. There’s been everything from rabid defense of the general to rabid calls for his public flogging. I read the article after hearing about the furvor on the news and if you haven’t, I encourage you to read it.

Because it’s no where near as bad as the media made it sound. Why do I say that? Well, for one, when people like Maureen Dowd criticize the general and his aides for machismo and “towel slapping”, I get annoyed. Why is it we as a society have taken machismo and manly, war like behavior and turned it into something to be condemned? Hello, he’s a general in the army. He’s not supposed to be handing out flowers and candy. He sends soldiers to kill people. That is what he does and the manner in which he carries out his mission, while subject to discussion and debate, should not be held up against some liberal version of ideals that say we can all just get along.

Additionally, as the leader of forces in Afghanistan, GEN McCrystal is the face of the war and, well, the public is sick of the war and I’m reasonably certain the politicians are, too, if media talk is any indication. The problem here becomes a few off hand remarks are turned into crimes nearly worthy of treason by a media that, despite protests to the contrary, are still very left leaning and anti war. And while the media have made good strides in not portraying soldiers as baby killers and pot heads like they did during Vietnam, there is still an underlying current that the soldiers shoulder the burden of being lumped in with the antiwar sentiment.

The fact that President Obama has seen fit to either accept GEN McCrystal’s resignation or to remove him from command remains firmly the president’s decision. What I see in a general that makes me respect and admire him, civilians look at as barbaric towel slapping. There is a disconnect between what we in the military deem appropriate or effective behavior and what civilians deem appropriate or effective.

In the end, this decision will be judged by the history books. Just as former President Bush’s legacy will change based on the long term success or failure of Iraq and his policies there, President Obama will be counted among the presidents responsible for the win or loss in Afghanistan. He made his decision after personally speaking with General McCrystal. He did not knee jerk and fire him via VTC or teleconference. He spoke to him face to face. I have to accept and believe that he made his decision based on the facts as he saw them and I will not question his decision. He is the commander in chief and I have an oath to obey his orders, just as all officers do.

GEN McCrystal served honorably and with the greatest admiration and respect of his soldiers. He was not necessarily loved but being in command isn’t about being loved, it’s about accomplishing the mission and taking care of soldiers. It is a true shame that a reporter with an ax to grind against the war and the military chose to publish this article about this general to grind said ax.

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Yeah, yeah, I know I said I wasn’t going to be online much as I’m in a self enforced deadline and MUST work if I ever hope to make writing, oh, I don’t know, a career.

But as I was driving to work today, something about my conversation with my old brigade commander a couple of weeks ago struck me. Actually, it hit me in the head. But first, a tangent.

I’m a soldier. That doesn’t mean that being a soldier and being a girlie girl are mutually exclusive, it just means that for me, I’m more comfortable in combat boots than high heels. Yesterday, I registered for the RWA National conference in Orlando. Now, for those that are part of the fantastic Austin RWA group, I usually show up in uniform because I leave straight from work to get down to Austin in a reasonable amount of time (I’ve been terrible about going this year and I’m trying to get better). But I always sit with my back to the door and I’m almost always terrible uncomfortable.

See, I’m surrounded by women. Great women. Awesome women who adopted me while I was deployed last year and sent me packages every single month. They didn’t forget about me when I fell of the planet for a while when I was dealing with some personal issues. They are fantastic.

And yet, I’m awkward and unsure of myself every time I step into the room. I worry that I’ll swear too much or be too impatient or say something that might be perfectly reasonable to me but strike a civilian as completely horrible. And I desperately don’t want to offend any of them because they are an awesome group of ladies.

But to be honest, my entire adult life has been spent surrounded by men. There are a few women scattered throughout the formation but by and large, I’m one of the few girls. So even though I wear makeup in uniform, I don’t wear much. I don’t want guys to look at me and see a girl, I want them to see a soldier. And even though the first thing they DO see is a girl, they don’t see a girlie girl and when I open my mouth, it’s obvious that I am a soldier first.

As I get ready to go to RWA, I realize that I am going to have to be on guard. I’m going to have to polish the turd, so to speak. To learn to have entire conversations without swearing, even when I’m relaxed.

Do you have any freaking idea how hard that is going to be? Oh and it says on the website business casual. Um, I own jeans. And t-shirts. And flip flops because when I’m chasing my kids around the zoo, heels aren’t exactly what I would call functional (I am, however, in awe of women who do decide to go to the zoo in high heels but I wonder if they’ve taken pain medication before hand?).

That being said, every time I go to ARWA, I’m glad I went because I learn a little more about how to relax and how to be a little more of a girl. I won’t be a soldier forever. At some point I’m going to have to get reacquainted with my feminine side.

And apparently, that was supposed to start the moment I commissioned. When my former brigade commander gave me some of his valuable time for mentorship, he pointed out that I still have some of my NCO tendencies. He asked me how many times he’d sworn during our conversation and I couldn’t honestly think of any. Then he asked how many I had. And I flushed but he said it was fine because we had a relationship. I wouldn’t talk like that if I was talking to the division commander and he was right.

So as I move further into my transition as an officer AND as a writer, I realize that I have to find ways to be a little less crass, a little more polished. I have to swear a lot less and find a ton more patience.

In essence, I have to start polishing the turd.

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In the last two days, I’ve had two people say that I expect other people to raise my kids for me because I’m in the military. Those words hurt and they offended me deeply.

But they are also somewhat true, to an extent. In my family, as many families with both parents working, there is no one to pick up the slack. One family member commented on how wrong I was to say that my kids stressed me out and stressed out my husband. But said family member has never had to deploy away from his kids for a year and then come home and actually stick around for the rebuilding process.

Yesterday also marked the 6 month mark since my husband and I came home from Iraq. Maybe it was fitting that these comments were made. Maybe they were the harsh truth that I was supposed to hear.

I’m a military mom and like all military moms, whether single, divorced, married to another service member or married to a civilian, I need help. I have my best friend here who can pick up the kids if there’s an issue and she knows she can count on me. What life would she have if she were not in the military, working to give her kids a better life? What life would I have if I wasn’t here, working to give my kids a better life than I had. I don’t want someone else to raise my kids, but I do need help, just like every working mom needs help.

There are milestones I’ve missed and moments I will never get back. But the thing that I got back today was a sense of enjoyment of my kids when I watched my kindergartener walk across the stage and graduate. Now it was only a kindergarten graduation but regardless of what you making a big deal out of every milestone, this was a big deal for my husband and I. We sat and watched out little girl who we’ve seen grow up via webcam sing on the stage and wave shyly at us from the crowd.

Today was a big deal because we struggled through a rough 6 months, learning to be a family again. And today marked a huge milestone because we were there for her finish kindergarten, even if we weren’t there for her first day of school.

There have been days over the last few months where I wished I didn’t have housework and dishes and crying kids to deal with. There were days when I could honestly admit that my kids caused me more stress than pleasure.

But today, when I hugged my little girl and felt the pride in her that she struggled through to be reading above her grade level, that she struggled through making new friends in a big school with new teachers to actually enjoy going to school every day, today, everything was ok.

Today, we were a family and we were together for a milestone.

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So today I was having a conversation with someone who shall remain nameless but let’s just say it was someone I’m close to.

I remarked how I’d gotten irritated over the weekend about the commercialization of Memorial Day and how so many folks seemed more concerned with sales than with remembering the fallen.

This person said “what, the whole country sucks because we didn’t all bow down and kiss your feet yesterday?”

This struck me rather forcefully. I understand that forceful opinions incite forceful responses and I’m self aware enough to realize that my opinions about how people were acting was a strong one.

What should I have said? Would it matter if this person was a stranger versus someone I’m close to?

What’s the right way to handle this?

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I deliberately did not blog about Memorial Day yesterday. I was going to. I was going to write about how when I was a junior in high school, my band took a trip to DC and I saw the Vietnam War Memorial and broke down into tears even though I knew no one who’d been in the war. But the names and the overwhelming sadness of the place hit me then and it hit me hard.

I couldn’t explain why I cried then nor can I explain the tears of my 17 year old self now.

I was going to write about how I took my daughters to the 1st Cavalry Division Operation Iraqi Freedom memorial. About how I showed them the 3rd Brigade patch that their daddy and I wore now and the patch that Daddy wore the last 2 times he deployed. I was going to write about how as I approached the memorial, my heart clenched and the tears came and I didn’t bother to stop them. I simply kept explaining things to my daughters with a new respect for the veterans who came before me and shed their own tears at memorials for their wars. I showed my daughters on a map where Mommy and Daddy were last year. Where Daddy was before my youngest was born and before my oldest could remember.

But I didn’t write about it.

I didn’t write because it hurts too damn much to watch the Twitter feeds about Dennis Hopper and Gary Coleman and sales and white shoes. It hurts because of the scant crowd at the Memorial Day parade or at the ceremony in Harker Heights where two of Fort Hood’s finest laid a wreath at the memorial.

It hurts because we pay lip service to honor our troops but when soldiers talk about child care issues or veterans issues at the VA, we hear people say we volunteered. We hear talk in Congress about cutting back medical payments for family members, failing to realize that yes, we volunteered but if our families are not taken care of, we won’t do so. It’s too hard being in a combat zone wondering if you’re going to come home for medical bills or worse, wonder if your family will even be able to get the medical attention they need.

The support for soldiers has been phenomenal on the surface. On the surface, people say thank you for your service and shake our hands. But what happens when the wars end and we’ve got thousands and thousands of people needing treatment for anxiety and depression and anger. What happens when employers won’t higher former soldiers with combat experience because they won’t take the risk that someone might snap? Where’s the support for the soldiers then?

We talk a good game about support the troops but that’s now. If we’re really going to support our soldiers, regardless of how we feel about the military, about the nation’s foreign policy, or the justifications for going to war, we need to dig in and understand that the war isn’t over when all the troops come home.

For many, it will just be beginning.

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I’ve been passively working on my family tree for a decade or so. Around 2000, when my last grandmother became sick, I developed an obsession to find out more about my grandparents and their lives.

Then I stopped because I was overcome by events. The folder went to my mom’s where it sat. When Gramma passed away, I as given boxes of pictures,which I put into albums and made my parents sit down and label.

So I’m pretty lucky. I’ve got 2 ginormous albums of my grandparents and their brothers and sisters. Pics of my parents and their siblings as kids.

But the coolest thing, I think was having pictures of my grandfathers in World War II. I’ve got Grampa Scott’s basic training graduation picture. I’ve got Grampa Cupero’s enlistment records from ancestry.com. Before he passes away, my Great Uncle Anthony told me that Grampa Cupero had been in the 9th Infantry Division, so I went a did some history. They were part of the invasion of North Africa during World War II.

I don’t have a ton. I’ve got pictures of my grandfathers posing in those typical GI photos with their buddies. Their friend’s names have been lost in history.

I think its pretty cool to be able to look back on my family’s history and see military service in there. My daughters will one day be able to look up their dad and me and find our military records out there. My grandfathers were part of World War II. My husband and I are both part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

With any luck, by the time they’re old enough to understand all that, the wars will be viewed as having been worth it. As having been the right thing to do. We’re too close right now to be able to make those judgments. Maybe with time, we’ll be able to see things more clearly.

Remember that this weekend is not about barbecue and picnics. Take some time to teach your kids about our military traditions. Teach them to say thank you to the grizzled VietNam vet you pass in the store. Teach them that there are those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the last century so that their moms and dads could live in peace and raise them, knowing that there are wolves guarding the gates.

But above all, remember the fallen this weekend. Remember those who have served. Their names might have been lost in the sands of time, but their sacrifice has not been.

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Well, I received the long anticipated ethics review and the short version is my book is dead if I want to get paid for it.

I can write it for free all day long but so long as I’m active duty, I cannot receive a single dime for it.

Wait for it.

Sigh.

So that kills that small dream. I honestly thought I’d written a proposal that met the requirements. Why else would I have gone out with it? I mean, crap, yeah, lets write a book proposal that has no hope in hell of selling and waste a whole bunch of people’s time.

Um no.

I’m pretty disappointed right now. Yep, I’ve even shed a tear or two. It’s not that I can’t write the book. But how can I justify spending time on a project that is going to take as much time as this? And there will be costs associated with writing it. Remember, I’d have to use all publicly available information, which means if I wanted in to Lexus Nexus, I’d have to pay for it and I couldn’t honestly claim it was an investment b/c I would go into it knowing there was no possibility of getting any money back.

Yes, this is about the money. Yes, I’ve spent the last 4 years working on becoming a writer because someday, I’d like to get out of the Army and write full time. That involves a paycheck but the long term goal is not something for me to just throw aside for the short term gain.

Apparently, my little dream of writing a few books while I was on active duty and building my reader base was nothing more than a fantasy. The lawyer said I can write a memoir, so there’s hope for that but it means essentially scrapping the current project as it stands.

So I’ve got some choices to make but I’m not doing that right now while I’m still reeling from the news. I’m not going to buck up against the Army because this is my career we’re talking about and as much as I’m looking forward at my life beyond the Army, that day is still far down the road.

Right now, all I can say is…shit, this sucks.

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Last year for Mothers Day, I was in Iraq. I remember it being a day of everyone saying “Happy Mother’s Day” when all I wanted to do was ignore the fact that I was even a mom. See, I’m an avoider. I avoid things that choke me up when I talk about them and the card my mom had sent me from my then four year old just about killed me. Being reminded all day that I was away from the one thing I needed to be near was simply brutal.

Last year, all I wanted was to be able to wrap my arms around my kids and hear their little voices say “I wuv oo”. The longing in me to go home was intense, so much so that I had to shut it down or else I would simply cease to function.

This year, becoming mommy again has had its own challenges. There has been much crying and screaming and gnashing of the teeth. There have been lots of ‘you’re not my friend’ any more as well as “I want Grammy’s” and there have been days when I seriously considered walking away from the military because reuniting was too damn difficult on all counts.

This year, I’m taking it one day at a time, just like last year. This year, I’m trying to smile when my kids drive me nuts, to be more patient and to be a better mom because the struggles with coming home have been so intense.

This year, work has been a refuge. It has been the place I go to so that I can still feel like a productive member of society rather than a freaked out version of Freddy Krueger’s mom.

But between last year and this year, one thing has not changed. I still have the best mom. Last year, she went through mother’s day taking care of my kids. Of having to listen to not only her grandkids cry but her daughter as well. This year, she’s gotten to listen to both again, but this time, she’s in Maine and we’re in Texas and just like me last year, all she wants to do is wrap her arms around my girls and make the hurt stop.

Reuniting has not been easy on anyone, but the fact that I’ve got a great mom behind me made last year easier. This year, just knowing that talking to her gives my kids a sense of security helps.

So I’m reposting last year’s Mother’s Day post. Just because it’s still true today.

Happy Mothers Day everyone. Today is one of those days I’m wanting to sleep through, b/ c if I don’t I’m liable to spend an inordinate amount of it crying.
But I have to say there are some great moms out there, but I’ve got one of the best. Not only did she take my two heathen kids for us for a year, but she’s doing a damn fine job raising them ( trust me, my oldest could piss off the pope). I’m able to be here in Iraq and do my job b/c my mom is taking care of business back home.
Thanks, Mom for being a great mom and an even better Grammy!
I love you.

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Somehow this weekend, I was roped into throwing a birthday party for Jerry. You know, as in Tom and Jerry. Tom wasn’t invited.

Anyway, the mystery of how I ended up doing this was soon solved when my dearest husband came home with yellow cake mix and chocolate frosting in a can. I have to admit, while those things are good, I was planning on making everything from scratch. I enjoy baking with my girls and somehow, it seems wrong for me to pour things out of a box, add a few eggs and presto, instant desert. Part of this come from remembering baking with my own mom when I was a kid and it’s a memory I want my kids to share.

Anyway, we made the cake out of the box. Originally, it was going to be cupcakes, except that I realized I had no cupcake liners. So, a double layer yellow cake was poured into two pans. After much negotiation and laying out of the plan, it was agreed that we would frost the cake after room clean up the next morning.

Room clean up was accomplished with only marginally smaller amounts of berating and nagging. We rearranged and actually came out with more space.

Then, I could no longer avoid my fate. It was time to frost the dreaded cake. I thought I’d seen somewhere where you trim the cake so that its all the same size. This was my first mistake. As I sawed through the edges, I revealed a crumbly moist inside that was very much not in the mood to have frosting stick to it. So I figure I’ll layer it on a little thicker and it won’t crumble all around me.

Half the tub went in the middle of the cake. Then I got the brilliant idea to nuke the frosting to make it just a smackerel easier to spread. Except of course, my domestically challenged self made it too thin. So I kind of smear it around the sides, hoping the thin frosting will act like glue for the rest of the new tub of frosting I had to run to Walmart and buy.

Sadly, my little cake was more of a fiasco. My dearest husband, who put me up the whole predicament proceeded to harangue me mercilessly in the cat’s voice and then could not actually believe how much frosting I managed to put on the darn thing. I actually got upset and both girls immediately started saying stuff like, “it’s okay mommy, jerry will still eat it.” – this from the 3 year old.

So we’re standing in the kitchen and both girls have mashed 2 pink candles into the cake. We light the disaster and the four of us sing happy birthday to a cartoon mouse.

It was one of those moments that hurt my heart because it was so achingly normal. I just stood there for a second and watched my kids and couldn’t believe that we’ve been together for 5 months now. At that moment, I loved my kids and all the fighting and the crying and the yelling was gone. For one moment, we were a normal family, with parents who weren’t tired and stressed out and partially crazy.

My family doesn’t have a normal baseline. One of us has been deployed or across the country or both for the last five years. You read about those dual military couples that have only gone through 1 or 2 deployments? We’ve gone through 3 in 5 years and I know there are families out there that have even more under their belts. Granted, I haven’t been gone the whole time but I can’t help but wonder what the cumulative effect of all this upheaval in my kids lives will have.
I can’t dwell on it. I have to just take the moments like the one yesterday and hang onto them but at the end of it all, I think that’s all any of us can do, whether or not you’re in the military.

So happy birthday, Jerry. Thanks for giving me one of those bright, shining moments that has been all too rare since redeployment and for liking the cake even though it looked like crap.

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My latest post is up over at PBS POV Regarding War. I’d love to hear what you think.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/regardingwar/conversations/women-and-war/mothers-in-the-military-punishing-mothers-who-serve.php

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It’s hard to believe but its been four months now since I first stepped off that plane from Iraq. So much has changed and yet, so much still remains.

January and February will go down as the worst months. Lots of crying and screaming and yelling as the kids tried to figure out where they fit and what they could get away with. Lots of tears on my part as guilt ate away at my soul, part for leaving and the other part for coming home and uprooting them once more. There was the panic over my oldest going from loving school to hating it. The daily battles to get her up in the morning and the ever present food battles where my oldest proved just how stubborn she truly was.

But February ushered in March, where things got a little better. There were still bad days. Really bad ones but the distance between them grew a little longer. But we as we moved forward, each night I fell asleep hoping that tomorrow would be better, that the stress and guilt eating away at me would ease back and we could enjoy being a family for a little while, however long that might be.

I’ve focused on my oldest because, at 5, she is more like a little person. She is more articulate and significantly more vocal than my youngest on so many issues. But lately, my youngest is starting to show signs of stress. She’s always cried when we drop her off at daycare in the morning, but now, she cries as soon as she wakes up.
She’s crying for Grammy, something she has not done in the last four months. I admit to being stunned the day she stood in a crowded rest stop in New Jersey and told me she didn’t think I loved her. I didn’t know what to say or do. As I’ve written before, I was prepared for I don’t love you, not you don’t love me.

But now when she gets upset with us, she says she wants to go back to Grammy’s because ‘hers always nice to me’ and ‘her loves me’. I think my 3 year old is confused. She doesn’t know where she fits and I worry more about her adjustment than my oldest’s simply because she is so little and she was so young (just over six months old) when I first left her.

Her difficulty is also painful because she’s always just gone with the flow. She’s never been a fussy kid, always kind of rolling with whatever. The fact that four months into our transition home and she’s suddenly having issues is extra tough to deal with because she’s been so resilient up to this point.

My little girl has been through a lot. She’s three and a half and she’s been without me for half her life. The guilt I keep thinking I’ve dealt with is like an insurgent, sneaking up when I’m least prepared to deal with it, like the middle of a rest stop. I hope she’ll be okay in the long run, but the simple lack of information about long term impacts means that my husband and I are simply going in blind and doing the best we can.

For now, I try to get my mom on the phone as much as I can so my kids can hear her voice. My youngest seems to need this contact more than my oldest. I’m trying to be as understanding and accommodating as I can, but really, how many times can you overlook a roll of toilet paper thrown in the toilet before someone needs to instill some discipline.

I think she’s doing fine, over all. But its those moments when she says how much she misses her Grammy that I feel my own heart breaking. She has no other words to express her confusion about where she fits in the world.

And I have no way to really pierce through the bubble of my own guilt.

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For that matter, just put them on for a while before you condemn our soldiers. Twitter is all abuzz today about the killing of two journalists by pilots in 2007. The incident is not new. We’ve known about the death of those Reuters reporters since it happened. It was also mentioned in Finkel’s The Good Soldiers.

It is unfortunate that innocents are killed in war. It is tragic when our soldiers turn to rape and murder like in the Stephen Green case from Mahmoudiya.

This incident in July 2007 was not another Mahmoudiya. It was not another Haditha. This was combat pilots in the air, providing air support soldiers on the ground during the surge. They believed the men in their sites were a threat, if not to them, then to the soldiers they were defending.
I have not flown in the cockpit of an Apache. I have not walked the streets during the surge.

But I have deployed and I do know the suspicion, the stress and the judgment calls that are made in battle cannot be second guessed by Monday morning quarter backs who have never worn the boots, let alone walked a mile in combat in them.

I watched the video.

Yes, we dehumanize the enemy. Yes, we make crude jokes about the people around us. Yes, we use black humor to get through what is arguably the darkest situation you can put a human being in. Killing another human being is not easy and it is not nice and the men and women who have gone to war come back changed forever. How each soldier copes with what they have done during war is not for us to judge.

As an Army, we do our bests to fight within the laws of war. Most of our soldiers go out with the intention of coming back. What they have to do to accomplish that, to bring their buddies home is not for those who have never served to question.

Soldiers come home and question what they’ve done during war. When battle is over and you’re back in the States, you have time to really think about what you’ve done. You can not change it. As an Army, we train by putting our soldiers in these situations before they deploy. We train to try and avoid things like this where innocents were killed. We conduct AARs to learn what we can do better. But you don’t get a do over. Once you pull that trigger, it’s an irrevocable choice.

It is unfortunate that these reporters were mistaken for insurgents. Was it a reasonable mistake? Yes. Because insurgents had decoyed themselves as media, as medics, as women in order to get closer to our soldiers. We do our best not to violate the laws of war. The same cannot be said about the enemy, who blatantly use mosques, schools and hospitals as staging areas for their weapons caches. And yet, we condemn our soldiers when we put them in impossible situations.

Those pilots made the best decision they could. The fact that later reports were different does not surprise me. An initial assessment of what’s going on often changes when the fog clears and people have time to really sift through what happened. I’ve stood in the TOC and listened to initial reports only to read later that what originally came through was not, indeed what happened. Does that mean someone lied? No, it doesn’t.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again until I’m blue in the face. Don’t you dare condemn us as dishonorable until you have worn the uniform and gone through combat. Each individual is responsible for his or her actions, even in a time of war. But war means death and destruction and unfortunately, innocents are caught in that.

War is not pretty. It never has been. So don’t pretend to sit there and say how horrible these pilots were because they were making wise ass remarks and smarting off. They were in combat and they were mentally in a place that allowed them to take another human life in defense of their brothers, under the orders of a nation that sent them there.

If they are to be judged, let it be by their peers. Men and women who have sat in that cockpit, who have flown in combat and who have had to make the same decisions they have. Those are their peers. Not some media group leaking classified information in the name of transparency when all they want to do is find another excuse to complain about Iraq and in doing so, paint the actions of our soldiers as murderers and thugs.

True atrocities have taken place in the conduct of this war.
This is not one of them.

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