jonsmom's Blog

Being the parent of a soldier isn't easy. I'm one of the lucky ones.   My son, who is in the Mass Army National Guard, returned home in November after being in Kosovo for 15 months.   When he joined he was only 17 and had just started his junior year in high school.
He completed basic training the following summer and returned to Georgia the summer after he graduated for his MOS training.  He is an infantryman.  When he returned from training, his unit had already gone to Guantanamo Bay.  In 2005 when asked, he volunteered to go to Kosovo on a NATO peacekeeping mission.  He was transferred from his unit to another one to be with other soldiers getting ready to go. There was not currently combat there, but I still worried.  He had to have his weapon with him at all times just in case.  The picture I have of him getting his Christmas dinner shows him with his gun slung over his shoulder.   Shortly after he was deployed, his original unit was told they would be going to Iraq.  I thanked God every day that he was not there.

Last year, the nephew of a friend of mine was sent to Iraq.  He felt, as most soldiers do, that he was well trained and knew he could go there and do his job.  On January 9th,  he and a group of his comrades, were sent to a house in the Diyala province which had been previously cleared of insurgents to investigate reports, from an informant, that the insurgents had returned.  They had an interpreter, and with him, ten soldiers went to do the job they were trained to do.  Only four survived.  It turns out that nobody informed them that indeed the insurgents had come back, wired the house with explosives, and left.    When six of the soldiers entered the house, the interpreter ran away.  The house exploded killing all six of these brave Americans.   My friend's nephew was buried under thousands of pounds of concrete.  Thank God he survived.  He is recovering in Walter Reed with two broken legs, second degree burns and other injuries.   He is expected to recover and will walk again.  It is going to be a very long recovery.  Both physically and psychologically.

These men were lead to their deaths by the interpreter.  It is believed that he knew full well what was going to happen.  They trusted him.  This is just one of the dangers of being in Iraq.  People compare this war to Vietnam.  I think it is worse.  At least in Vietnam the soldiers had more of an idea who the enemy was.  In Iraq it could be the vendor at the market, the child on the street or even the interpreter hired to help you.  Just today I read about these horrible people using mentally handicapped women to kill 70 people at an animal bazaar.  Wired with explosives that were detonated remotely.  Who are these people?  When will this all stop?  How many more of our precious sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives have to die?  Or suffer horrific injuries?   I can't even imagine the heartbreak the families of these young people endure.  The pain must be unbearable. 

Being the parent of a soldier isn't easy.  I'm one of the lucky ones.