CARBONDALE, IL — I’m thinking of a young man I met back when the “forever wars” were juicing up. Bookstores were still the place to hang for an afternoon of delightful escape. At the local Barnes and Noble, a likable young man named Adam was often behind the coffee counter. Dark short hair, dark complexion, handsome, a student. He served in the National Guard.
He and his wife were expecting their first child when he told me was being deployed to Afghanistan. He would miss the birth. He was heartbroken, but trying not to show it. I was heartbroken for him.
Months went by, and one day I walked in to find Adam behind the counter again, serving up coffee for the book hounds. I was so elated to see him, alive and well, and home again! We exchanged a happy greeting and I asked about the baby. Six months old already!
Months went by again, and one day a coworker told me Adam had been deployed back to Afghanistan. Again! My heart sank. It seemed absolutely inhumane to be called back for a second tour after having survived the first. As the war went on, it became common for men and women to be called multiple times, leading to the suicide of soldiers like the husband and father out east who was facing his FIFTH deployment.
I never saw Adam again. Though I asked, none of his coworkers ever had fresh news of him. As I thought of him, in my mind he is, of course, that same young man I knew then. I thought of his six-month old baby, a girl, I think. Did she get her daddy back home a second time?
Then I realized with a start that she would be nearly a grown woman now, old enough to enlist herself, possibly to help foot the cost of an education, as her dad had done. Adam, if still alive, would no doubt be starting to gray around the temples.
I don’t know where I’m going with this. It’s just a sadness that needs to be expressed.
Our generals admitted, as revealed in the Afghanistan Papers, that they don’t know where they’re going or what they’re doing either. With the wars, that is. And they never did. Our presidents lied about it till they were red (or blue) in the face. But they sure as hell like to blow up things anyway. Including our lives and our kids. It’s madness and must be stopped. Problem is, our economy is now quite dependent on it. It must be stopped anyway. It ain’t easy to stop a war. Ask any child of the sixties.
Retha’s family is from the WV coalfields, and she had relatives at the Matewan Massacre.