Editor,
Several months ago I was in Dallas, sitting on an airplane about to depart to Orlando, Fla. An American soldier dressed in his brown uniform took the seat next to me. Somehow, we started talking about where we were from in Florida, and as the plane took off and the wheels pulled in, he kind of jolted. He glanced over at me and then explained that he'd just got in from Iraq.
He told me, "It's kind of weird, just yesterday I was getting shot at, and now I'm sitting here on this civilian plane talking to you. I didn't want to come back home. My friends are still over there, you know? It doesn't seem right."
It scared me a little to look in his eyes, because he was several years younger than me and his eyes were old. They were so old they were almost dead, and they scared me. All at once, I wanted to forget all my negative feelings about the war and the president and tell him that he's brave and that he's fighting for a noble cause. But I couldn't. So I didn't say anything. All at once I wanted to be wrong about everything. I was a civilian sitting here with all my opinions. He'd nearly died several times and been braver than I'd ever been, and for that he should get to be right.
But I knew I was the only one in row six thinking about wrong and right.
"When you're there," he said, "it's not like there's 'The Star-Spangled Banner' playing and an American flag waving behind you. You're just trying to stay alive, and you're trying to keep all your friends safe."
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Even while he was talking, he was quiet. For some reason, I felt like I'd never encountered a being like this one before. I scrambled to think of questions, lest he stop talking. My questions were dumb.
When I arrived in Orlando, I followed the crowd from the plane down to baggage claim. Up ahead, I spotted the soldier walking with his big Army bag. Further ahead I saw a middle-aged woman standing with a teenage girl and a boy. She was standing in front of the two teenagers looking jittery and scanning the crowd in front of her anxiously.
When she finally saw him, she shouted something wordless and nearly seemed to be vibrating. She hugged him for a long time, crying while the two teenagers looked at him awkwardly but smiling. Then they hugged him too. As the four of them continued on to baggage claim, she never took her eyes off him. She just kept her eyes on him with this wild, nervous energy.
In three weeks, she would have to let him go again. Back to Iraq, back to war - and maybe, never to come back again. What if she could just say no? What if she just said, "No, I'm not letting you go. I don't care what they say on NBC, I didn't raise you for this"?
There are so many things that we accept as a society, as a world, just because we're used to them and that's the way it's always been. I think war is largely a result of the unquestioned authority of the patriarchy. Boys are taught to be strong and tough, but strong and tough aren't really the qualities of which the world is in need.
Of course, there are much better alternatives to war. However, might has made right for a very long time, and bad habits are hard to break.
Juliet Wing
UNM alumna
