GODSTUFF

HATING THE WAR, HONORING THE WARRIORS

Dan’s wife, Christine, attaches his captain’s pins

Memorial Day this year, for me, was as conflicted as the weather on the outskirts of Chicago. Sunny and bright one hour; overcast and threatening the next.

In the last six weeks, I lost a dear friend to a roadside bomb in Iraq; my little brother became a major in the Air Force and received his orders to deploy, for a second time, to fight in Afghanistan; and, most recently, my husband’s eldest son became a captain in the Army, graduated from medical school, and, in a few days, will report for duty serving his country as a doctor.

As a nation, we’ve been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than five years. By my count, as of this morning, the war — a war I oppose and mourn intensely — has been going on for 1,893 days.

A swell of emotions caught me off guard last week as I sat in the chapel at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, and watched my husband’s beautiful daughter-in-law affix captain’s pins to his first-born-son’s green Army uniform, as his own father, a World War II veteran, looked on from a wheelchair in the front row.

I am so profoundly, unequivocally proud of and grateful for my husband’s son, Dan. He is determined and courageous, kind and brave, sensitive and strong. But most of all, I am in awed by the quality of his heart — a tender, servant’s heart.

Dan with his grandparents, Dorothy and Harold, and his father, Maury (aka Crime Boy)

As I watched Dan set his jaw, salute and then turn to smile at his family, I couldn’t hold back the tears. Pride was there, yes, and love, but also fear and with it a certain resentment. I knew, truly and viscerally down deep in my bones, perhaps for the first time, that we are living in a time of war. And that war changes everything.

I can remember where I was sitting when I first heard the news on March 19, 2003, of U.S. air strikes in Iraq. And I recall vividly the sheer panic that followed about my brother, Mark, an A-10 pilot, and what war might mean for him. Blessedly, after a lengthy tour of duty in Afghanistan several years ago, my brother returned home safely.

Now, five years later, Mark’s heading back. And the pain, fear and pride I feel for him are even more intense.

On Monday, as I sorted through family photos from Dan’s graduation and a backyard family picnic Sunday afternoon, I turned on the TV and found the new film “Recount” on HBO.

“Recount,” is the story of the protracted, rollercoaster Florida recount in the weeks following the 2000 presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. We all know the story — or at least a version of the story that best fits our political predilections — and at first the TV movie was just background noise while I cropped and color-corrected photos of my husband’s children and his 5-month-old grandson giggling in a blue-white-and-red Cubs onesie.

My attention shifted to the television not long into the film, when Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (played mercilessly by Laura Dern) — with her unfortunate makeup, and questionable ethics turned up on screen trying — rather inelegantly, to “bring in the election” for then-Gov. Bush.

The film unfolds as one might expect — there are clearly good guys and bad guys . . . and the bad guys win. It’s a familiar story arc and one with which I am perfectly comfortable.

But once again the waterworks started, and I had a hard time turning them off. That same sense of pride mixed with something close to rage at the seemingly senselessness of it all.

Would it have been different had Gore been the 43rd president of the United States instead of Bush? Would we be on year five of an wildly unpopular war? Would we have gone to war in the first place?

I’d like to think that my opposition to the war, which comes from deeply held spiritual beliefs, would be the same no matter whose war it was. But I am certain that my feelings toward the men and women who risk their lives on our behalf would remain unchanged.

Simply put, I am in awe of our men and women in the Armed Forces. Their choice to serve and put themselves in harm’s way in a culture that doesn’t really value such selflessness, despite claims to the opposite, humbles me.

No matter how you feel about this or any war (or this or any administration) you would have to be heartless not to honor that kind of service, that level of selflessness.

So we pray for their protection — to bring them home safely and soon — for strength to bear their absence and for an end to this and all war. And we give thanks for their servant hearts.

May we may learn from their example and never forget.