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In a Time of War
I wrote this morning to an old friend stationed in the army in Korea: Dear J, I miss you and I worry about you and I wish you'd hurry up and come back to the States so I wouldn't feel bad about calling you "dicksmack." At least that one time. Write and let me know how you be... ************************************** I suppose it's time for me to talk about the war. It's funny to me that I haven't talked about it at all in here yet - because it's been the main topic of most of my spoken conversations lately. Everyone I know has a personal stake in this war - that is to say, pretty much everyone I know has a loved one who either is fighting as I type this, or is prepared to mobilize. I have had conversations about how unfair it is that a man would have to leave his wife and 3 kids - the youngest of who was barely a year old when he shipped out; how sobering wedding planning can become when your best man is suddenly told to make the most of his last days in the States because there won't be much time for fun where he's headed; how grown men struggled (and mostly failed) to keep dry eyes when one if their oldest and dearest friends had to say goodbye; and how terrifying it is to know that someone you love will probably wind up there. It's almost as if there are no longer any "ifs" - everything has become a "when." I have turned this war over and over in my head - examining every side of it and trying to make sense of it. I feel as though I haven't done a very good job. This war unnerves me, and I can't put my finger on exactly why - but I've pretty much figured out that it's because there are just so many reasons why. I'm older now and what seemed like a soap opera on TV 12 years ago is now a bunch of people I actually know batting their eyes flirtaciously at danger. The post 9/11 realization that we're not invincible doesn't help matters any either. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. When left unattended, my mind details an exact map of what I would do in the event of a terrorist attack in such graphic detail that I wind up having to forcably stop it or it'll leave me with a bad case of agoraphobia. In my weekly meeting yesterday afternoon, talk turned to how prepared we, as a medical institution, are in the event of a terrorist attack. Guidelines were laid out and options were discussed and I sat there with my jaw dropped slightly as I realized I had just become witness to yet another way my life has changed in the last year and a half. There was an almost surreal moment in there when my mind seemed to make the connection that- however remote - an attack is a very real possibility. It's not just my imagination running away with me. This is incredibly unsettling and thus-my stomach dropped when my regularly scheduled program was interrupted with a breaking news bulletin at approximately 9:45 p.m. last night. It dropped - and it hasn't come back up yet. I talked to my friend Sarah about it as she was driving me home last night. I told her how uneasy the whole situation made me and she nodded and added that she felt like it was also forcing her into adulthood. She said that she's spent so much time lately trying to figure out if she supports this war or if she doesn't support this war and that she was torn in two different directions about it. I agreed that it has been really tough to put the pieces together and that the biggest mistake I have felt I could make is to form an opinion without considering that there are two sides of the story (of course, this is pretty much always the biggest mistake I think I could make). Together we wondered if it made any difference anymore whether we support or disagree with it. It's happening. Does it matter what we think about it? Maybe this should be the point where we quiet our angry raised voices and begin to pray. Pray - and offer our support to the thousands of troops who are over there fighting - right now - whether we agree with it or not. There is enough fighting...enough conflict...enough anger to feed the entire world for the rest of our lives. Maybe what we need now is prayer. |
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