Two wars

While reading today’s Monitor, I paused to study a photograph on page A6. The picture showed soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division patrolling the streets of Baghdad. I stared at it because I was looking for my nephew, a lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne.

He is my sister’s youngest child. He was a good student and an even better ROTC cadet at his high school in North Carolina. Shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he won an appointment to The Citadel. We were happy for him. His family would have been hard-pressed to pay for college, and The Citadel was a gateway to opportunity. There was no reason to think his military obligation would put him in harm’s way.

That changed, of course. After my nephew graduated, he began active duty. He went to Airborne school. He learned about improvised explosive devices. My sister’s e-mails to me expressed increasing alarm. It was obvious where her son’s training was pointing him.

My nephew came home on Christmas leave, but before it was up, he received a call to report back to duty immediately. Before we knew it, he was in Kuwait, and then Baghdad. After telling me of his assignment, my sister said: “You know, this just wasn’t what I had planned for my son.” My nephew wrote from Baghdad to say he would have little chance to e-mail me again anytime soon. “We’re ramping up to leave the wire for long periods of time,” he wrote.

There has been sharp debate in the Monitor’s letters to the editor recently about whether it is possible to support the troops while opposing the war.  I thought Iraq was a mistake from the beginning – a war of choice that went against the American grain. But the troops were not to blame for this any more than the troops in Vietnam were to blame for their misbegotten war. In part because people did blame Vietnam veterans and later realized their mistake, I have heard only a couple of voices on the fringe blame the troops for Iraq.

I haven’t asked my nephew, but I’m pretty sure he believes in what he is doing. Whether he does or not, I support him and all the troops there. And whatever his views and mine might differ, his presence in Baghdad has changed the way I follow the war. When I hear that a soldier or two or three have been killed or a U.S. military installation has been attacked, I want to know where and which units. When I hear that things are looking better in Baghdad one day and worse the next, it is not merely one more quickly forgotten daily snapshot.

It was a little frustrating looking at the photograph in today’s paper. The 82nd Airborne soldiers were all bedecked in protective gear and wearing sunglasses. I couldn’t have recognized my nephew if he was in the picture.

But I see the war differently now. And I’m just his uncle. I can only imagine the thoughts going through my sister’s mind. Multiply that by the thousands of Americans with a personal stake in the war. In that sense, this is really two wars – one for the many with no personal stake in it, another for the deeply fretting few.