HOW OBAMA TAUGHT THIS MARINE MOM TO FIGHT BACK
This entry was posted on 11/11/2008 8:11 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
At this time, four years ago, I couldn't breathe.
Even though I swim twice a week at the local community college, do Yoga three or four times a week, and go hiking with my dogs in the country, still, I could not breathe.
At that time, my son was fighting--block by block, street by street, house by house, room by room--with the Marine Corps in Fallujah, in what was to be one of the bloodiest, most hard fought battles in Marine Corps history. More combat awards, from Purple Hearts to Navy Crosses, were given to my son's unit, the Third Battalion, Fifth Marine, than were given in the entire military service--including Army--put together. To this day, more soldiers and Marines died in that month than in any other month of this miserable Iraq war.
Their commander in chief, George W. Bush, had deliberately delayed the battle until after the election, fearing that so many dead soldiers and Marines on people's TV news every night would have cost him votes.
To this Marine mom, his re-election meant that my family would remain in hell for years to come. Until June of 2008--just this past summer--the Mills family had a precious son or nephew in combat deployments to the worst areas of Iraq for every single year since the war began in 2003, for a total of six Marine and army deployments, every one of them Infantry, every one of them horrific.
And so this time four years ago, I could not breathe.
I've always been wary of doctors and only go once a year, for my annual ob/gyn check-up and mammogram, but my doctor, a woman, mom, and friend--was worried enough to send me to a cardiologist. He ran every stress-type, dye-in-the-blood, you-name-it test he could think of, but all the results were normal--exceptionally so for a woman in her 50's, he said. Even I could see enough seriously sick people in his waiting room to know I didn't belong there.
I decided that broken hearts don't always show up on the X-Rays.
My son came home in one piece and of relatively sound mind, only to be shipped back in 2006, a time that was so dangerous in the Anbar that every single time his platoon went out on patrol, someone got "blown up," which means, fell prey to a roadside bomb, including my son. He came home, but it was tougher this time. He'd watched friends die and could have been killed himself. He'd been injured, though not as seriously as some. He had a lot to work through in his head.
But still, I could not breathe.
In fact, I could barely function, and it wasn't just me. The other combat moms and dads and other family members I knew suffered similar symptoms of their own peculiar brand of post traumatic stress. When a human being endures months on end of the worst kind of terror you can imagine--knowing, all along, that as long as Bush is in the White House your child or spouse or sibling will get sent back and back and back again and again and again--it does something to the wiring in your brain.
My sister-in-law, who sent my nephew Michael into combat with the Marines three times, tells me that to this day, even though he's been out of the service for two years, she still can't sleep nights. We talked about the feelings of agitation, unrest and unease, restlessness, bouts of depression, and nightmares we all still suffer, even though our loved ones are safe now.
It's not just the troops who fight wars, you see.
By the time Dustin came home for his post-deployment leave in 2006, I was profoundly depressed. I cannot recall another time in my life where I had felt so helpless, so powerless, so hopeless.
I had opposed this war from the beginning, only to send one precious son or nephew after another into the meat-grinding maw of it, and I could see no end in sight. Every day the axis of evil--Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld--would talk empty words like "victory" and spread happy-news propaganda that I knew was bullshit. Not only did I know from a wide range of reading in publications worldwide (including the Army Times and Marine Times), but I knew from talking to my family members who'd been there.
Dustin came home that year a couple weeks before Mother's Day. His gift to me was a brand-new computer, which he paid for with some of his combat pay.
"You have a talent," he said. "Use it to fight back." He added, "Don't be nice. This is war."
Next to my computer are two framed photographs: one, of my son in full combat gear, to remind me of the price he had to pay to buy this computer for me; and two, my daughter, wearing a peace sign around her neck and with a photograph of her brother pinned to her shirt, protesting the war at the Republican convention in New York City, 2004, to remind me how to best use the computer, and why.
For months I spoke out against the war, marshalling facts and figures and passion and fire and marching them tirelessly across the spectrum of the Internet, but eventually I could see that the Democrats in congress did not have the power to end this war--not if their one-vote majority in the Senate was the likes of Joe Lieberman. Not if they could not overcome a Bush veto.
Again, I was laid out by that old feeling of powerlessness, that nothing I or anyone else could ever do would change anything about the war in Iraq. Bush sent MORE troops--including yet another nephew, Troy--for the so-called "surge" that was deliberately designed for one reason and one reason only: to win the media war, to tamp down violence enough to take the war off the evening news and set up Bush's Chosen One--John McCain--to come sweeping in as the next commander-in-chief of that endless war.
My nephew's army unit was shipped over early as part of the surge, before they'd even had desert training. Two weeks after arriving in-country, their deployment was extended by three months. Their Stryker brigade was sent to the Diyala province, which, in 2007, was one of the bloodiest parts of the country.
More endless months of not being able to breathe.
I had been following Barack Obama's career path ever since the convention of 2004, and I'd read both his books. It seemed to me, when he declared for the presidency, that he was going to take what he'd learned as a community organizer and apply it nation-wide. It was bold and untried and pretty much mocked by the party establishment.
Obama wanted to end the war; not "precipitously"--as the media and opponents endlessly accused--but responsibly and reasonably, allowing for conditions "on the ground" but not being dictated by them. This is something a military family can understand, appreciate, and support.
I realized that the only way we would ever see any hope of ending the war in Iraq was to put Barack Obama in the White House.
For the most part, I swung away from writing about the war, and from that point on, poured all my energies, talents, skills, and what money I could afford, into the campaign to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. I was, in fact, one of the first few thousand to sign up on his new webpage.
At the time, he was 30 points behind Hillary, and nobody but his straggling gaggle of supporters took him seriously.
For two years, this Marine mom--with full support and encouragement from her Marine son (also an Obama supporter)--fought in a war of her own, battling through a hard-fought, nerve-wracking primary season and on into a truly vicious campaign. I was part of another type of army--volunteers and supporters, giving what they had to give, to a cause greater than themselves.
For 10, 12 hours a day, I worked at my computer, photos of my son and daughter at hand. My job, as I saw it, was to persuade, to influence, to cajole, to encourage--even to badger, at times--anyone out there who might read my words, to vote for Obama.
I knew that as a Marine combat mom, my words held a certain weight, because the Republicans had used patriotism as a bludgeon to beat into submission anyone who dared think a thought contrary to the party line, and their favorite thing to do was to use "the troops" as photo-op props, which sent the subliminal message that "the troops" were all Bush-supporters too and that a vote against his agenda was a vote against them, that to protest Bush's War was to protest soldiers and Marines.
Whenever I got the chance, I worked to dismantle that myth, and over time, I heard from hundreds of active-duty military, veterans, and military families who thanked me for speaking out when they felt (those on active duty) that they could not. Or when they just didn't have the words.
I was their voice.
Living in a red-state Republican county (which ultimately voted 75% for John McCain), I drove around with a huge sign in my rear window that read:
BLUE STAR FAMILIES FOR OBAMA: PRO-MILITARY, PRO-OBAMA.
Whenever I could, I worked to expose the difference between John McCain's patriotic rhetoric and war-hero narrative...and his voting record, which was dismal. He voted against measure after measure after measure that was designed to support either veterans or troops in the field. He actively fought against the new G.I. Bill.
I also wanted people to know that Michelle Obama had adopted military families and the stress and strain fighting two wars has put on them, as one of her signature issues, and she has worked tirelessly to get that word out, and to visit as many military bases as she can, listening to their concerns, and taking them home to her husband.
My posts got picked up and started to appear all over the Internet, in some unusual places--a Denver newspaper, a Montana Democratic website, a Michigan paper. Some of my HuffingtonPost.com and Talking Points Memo pieces got Buzzed and Twittered and Yahooed. Readers sent links to friends all over the world.
In July, Barack Obama visited Baghdad and met with Gen. Petraeus. From what I've read of what took place, Petraeus rolled out the full-court press to bring Obama over to the Bush/Cheney/Petraeus point of view--that Iraq was the central front of the war on terror and that we needed to be there pretty much indefintely. There were helicopter tours, lengthy and detailed power-point demonstrations, high-ranking meetings with brass.
Reports are that Obama was deeply respectful of Petraeus--but he stood firm. He reiterated that, were he to be elected president, he would have to be concerned with not just Iraq, but with the entire Middle East, Afghanistan, and other hot points in the globe.
He would not forsake those responsibilities for Iraq. That, in fact, as commander-in-chief, one of the first things he would do is sit down with those very generals and start planning an end to the war.
This meeting, and its aftermath, flew completely under the media radar, but this Marine mom stood up and cheered when she read it. Obama sent a clear signal that he was not going to hero-worship Petraeus and was not going to be intimidated or deterred from what he thought was the best thing to do for our country.
This was huge. Since most members of the press never served in the military, they didn't think it significant to report, but I can guarantee you it sent a shockwave through the military community--mostly one of relief.
Not all ranking or enlisted military even wanted to wage this war in Iraq in the first place, and many of them have been appalled at how it has been mismanaged. The strains of repeat deployments have torn apart families, driven up suicide rates as well as rates of PTSD and other signs of great stress, as well as driven down recruitment.
They're exhausted. Nobody wants to rocket-launch the troops out of Iraq and abandon the people who have come to depend upon them for their safety, but they're more than ready to serve notice to the Iraqi government that it's time for them to step up and take care of themselves.
It is my understanding that, since then, Obama has had several substantive conversations with Petraeus, who has since left to take over the Central Command and ordered up a complete evaluation of the situation in Afghanistan. Petraeus's recent announcement that an army brigade would be sent home from Iraq three months early and not replaced is a clear signal that he understands that he will have a new boss with new priorities.
For me, getting Barack Obama elected president was not just a matter of partisanship or politics.
It was life or death.
My fight to put Obama in the Oval Office was, in effect, a fight to protect my family.
I realize that my voice was only one of millions; a single thread woven into the fabric of a brilliant tapestry. You wouldn't be able to pick my thread out from all the others, but when you stand back and take a good long look...oh, what a beautiful thing it is that we have wrought.
This has never been about just one man. It has never been about worshipping some sort of messianic figure whom we all believe will save the world.
This has, from the beginning, been a MOVEMENT, a surge, if you will, of millions who poured out into the streets and over the airwaves and telephone lines and Internet connections and rallies...millions of voices, raised in one sustained SHOUT to bring down the walls of Jericho.
There may not have been any blood shed in this battle, but it was a fight, every step of the way. And somewhere along the line, this Marine mom no longer felt helpless and hopeless and powerless.
I felt empowered.
I had stepped up. I had done my part. I had lifted my voice. I had fought the good fight.
On the moment that Obama was declared the new president-elect on TV, my husband called me, and I broke down crying. My daughter called, and my son called, and my sister called, and friends called.
And still I wept.
For days, I wept.
I could not write.
There were no words.
And then, one soft sunset on the eve of Veteran's Day, I took the dogs for a walk down our country road. The sun had gone down in a blaze of West Texas glory, and the sky was violet and rose-red.
On the distant horizon, the giant wind turbines stood silent sentinal--each one, to my mind, a monument to the fallen. I would so much rather tall turbines stretched across the plains as far as the eye can see...than more white headstones spread out across Arlington National Cemetery.
Every wind turbine is, to me, one less soldier or Marine who has to die for oil.
I stood for a moment, watching the tiny red lights blink on the distant turbines, and closer, along a fenceline that stitched together a couple of pastures, the sillouettes of three deer moved with calm, quiet grace against the purple sky.
There was a breathless hush in the normally restless West Texas wind, the time the cowboys like to say the wind "lies down" for the day.
In that moment, I took a deep, long breath...and I was free, at last.
For me, the war was over.
And I could breathe again.
