Veteran's Day

Today is Veteran's Day. Although David is still very much active duty with five or more years to go on his duty to the Army, he is now a veteran of a foreign war.

So far, he seems to have weathered the limited amount of combat he saw in his short tour in Iraq, and for that I am grateful. I am grateful that he came home alive and uninjured, mentally and physically.

With 857 deaths this year, 3,860 fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan (as of Nov. 9) and 28,451 wounded (according to the Department of Defense as compiled by iCasuaties.org), I am profoundly grateful that we were not among those for whom a chaplain came to the door or a call came from a hospital.

I am grateful to him for doing his duty as he sees it, along with his fellow soldiers, sailors and marines. I am profoundly ungrateful to those who put him in harm's way in the first place with ill advised fantasies of Middle East policies, oil greed and political philosophies blinding them to the realities of conflicts far older than our notions of democracy.

Oddly, after nearly 16 months of wandering around the U.S. without a permanent home, David has a place to call his own while his parents are temporarily "homeless." We are staying with my mother after giving up our New York apartment and waiting until March when we can get back into our Walnut Creek home.

He is discovering the advantages and disadvantages of putting his life on hold after going off to war for six months; we are discovering the highs and lows of changing places as parents and children, and being both at the same time.

The Los Angeles Times is carrying a two-series on the "Marlboro Marine," a young man photographed by Times photographer in Fallujah in 2004 ( see photo above) who later suffered from PTSD. The series is compelling as the photographer struggles with the journalistic ethics of involving himself in the life of a young man whom he inadvertently made famous. This young man suffered from an unstable home life before he went into the Marines, and that didn't help him deal with his post-combat life.

I hope that we helped to make David strong enough for this experience. I know that he has made us stronger.

I love you, Guy. Happy Veterans Day.