10-14-02: Thoughts From a Soldier pre-departing Afghanistan

Before leaving Afghanistan, my Army daughter wrote this email (late 2002) to me about the war in Afghanistan and her thoughts about it all. She was all of 18 at the time. She had 5 years of college behind her. She had always wanted to serve her country. She enlisted in December 2000; bootcamped in May 2001. When 9-11-2001 happened, we knew -- And she was in the second tranch into Afghanistan.

A loud resounding boom echoes in the background of your work environment. Your weapon is inspected every day. You’re instructed to take your mefloquine every week for fear of Malaria.

The above is merely an example of day-to-day life in Afghanistan. Those little things are simple reminders of exactly where you are: in the middle of war.

Workdays usually range between ten to fourteen hour days. Briefings are constantly being held to discuss this and that.

There truly is a war going on. And our lives are truly at stake.

The thought, when truly considered, is massive. It easily and quickly becomes a dull throb in the back of your mind amid the chaos.

It’s all simply validated, however, - and righteously validated, I add by the deaths of thousands of innocent American men, women, and children. Whose simple mistake was to go to work or board a plane or just to be.

When the Twin Towers fell, American apathy fell with it. Or so we thought as we boarded the C-130’s that brought us so many miles across the sea.

Our fellow American brethren were staunchly supportive of our activities as we struggled for footholds amid the terrorist-run regime in Afghanistan. Day in, day out, we saw footage of our countrymen out in the streets declaring fervently their encouragement, agreement, and pride. It was unbelievable motivating.

And yet, despite all of this, our hopes were shot as one American after another again slipped into the apathetic and hopeless trait of laziness.

More people in the world suffer similar fates as our deceased family members, friends, and acquaintances, and yet because we haven’t a recognizable face to mention, we say nothing. Perhaps it isn’t our war. It’s our concern, however, as previous threats have been made. Now is the time to act. We’ve already seen what “biding our time until provoked” has accomplished. What are we waiting for?

The men and women of the American military are ready! We know what’s in store for us or might be. We aren’t children. If we joined and didn’t know that pain even death was perhaps in our future, then we joined under a childish utopian mindset and must suffer the consequences.

The fight is in our blood, now. We’ve tasted the glory of standing firm in righteousness. The vision of the fallen still burns in our minds day after day. We sleep, eat, breath, train and work mere hundreds of miles from the aforementioned conflict and actually within the current one. Unlike those in the states, we have become part of this world. Its activities involve us.

Many of the world’s countries have mentioned needing to wait until proof makes itself seen. How can anyone say that after 9/11? We waited and look what happened. Does history not teach anything or are we too self-concerned to bother with its study?

The Commander-in-Chief has already stated that the war is with Saddam Hussein, not with the country. We have experience in what a war does to the innocents, both in America and Afghanistan.

Both countries have been hurt deeply and are reeling from the impact of history. Iraq would sit between the two in situation if a war occurs: a (semi) thriving nation that would be torn down.

We’ve seen that war destroys a country easily and quickly and would the same to Iraq. Its citizens have already been forced to choke down the stones of war and are only recently again thriving. The war scares them. Will they suffer again? Are their Afghan brothers soon to be their mirror image once again? A country whose people are scattered amidst it like the winds?

They’re willing to dispel the images of pain, destruction, and abomination if it means that they won’t again have to feel the wrath of the United States of America. Silent acquiescence is their response to the horror they are subjected to day in day out. It has come to suit them. They can live with that if they don’t have to be part of what once was.

If we can accomplish our intended mission swiftly and deftly, perhaps they will see that they, too, have a voice. Perhaps, as is Afghanistan, they will realize that they, themselves, can become a country and that the tight reins of tyranny and oppression are not what bind together a strong country, but people who are willing to work hard and tirelessly to get where they want to be. A people, not just a person who uses scare tactics to manipulate.

Again we return to the US’s stance on the situation and a point is brought to light: how can we, as a superpower and member of the UN, declare that we will defend humanity against oppression, and still let this go on? Knowing full well what is happening and keenly aware of what might happen?

Obviously, September 11, 2001 didn’t mean as much to the civilians as it did to the military members who have put their lives on the line. To the firemen who died and those who survived. The policemen. The unnamed but dedicated citizens.

Obviously, it didn’t, or the populace wouldn’t be so resistant.

We acted when Hitler took on his regime against the Jews. We intervened in Vietnam. Korea. We have taken part in so many “rescue missions” it makes me wonder why the oppression of another people is so disputed? Especially when the oppressor seems fearless to hide (of all things) nuclear weapons.

Perhaps he doesn’t have them. Perhaps he is merely bluffing.

That doesn’t give us the right to ignore the sound of a crying nation. A defenseless people badgered into still silence.

We’re ready, America. We, the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines of the United States of America, are ready to defend them. No one deserves to suffer as we did on 9/11.

We were able to fight our attackers. Iraq, however, is being attacked within itself.

Are we going to help save the innocents as we have before?

Or are we going to let those people live and die in tortured silence?

World, we’re ready.