Scales Fall From Our Eyes

Since September 11, we see the world as it really is, not as we would have it be.

Even as we order takeout, shop at the mall and watch premieres of new sitcoms, we're getting used to the idea that the United States is at war, that two oceans and 21st-century technology no longer protect us from death on our own soil.

We fit our children with gas masks, scour the Internet for ways to protect ourselves from anthrax and smallpox, consider stockpiling food and water, and make no plans farther than day after tomorrow.

When he sent our sons and daughters and mothers and fathers into combat against terrorism, President George W. Bush read from a letter he said he'd received from a fourth-grade girl whose father is in the military.

"As much as I don't want my dad to fight," Bush quoted her as writing, "I'm willing to give him to you."
The president added: "This is a precious gift, the greatest she could give. This young girl knows what America is all about."

No, I don't think so, Mr. President. She is simply a child who loves her daddy, who wants to do what she thinks he would want her to do, is terrified of losing him and is finding her own way to be brave so her dad will be proud of her.

That's how I felt as a 15-year-old, standing in the doorway of my parents' bedroom in a split-level house in a brand new subdivision a mile from Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, Mo., in October 1962.

My father, wearing his green nylon flight suit and gripping his B-4 "brain" bag filled with aviation charts, had a Missouri road map spread out on the bed and was tracing a black line on it.

"If something happens, this is how you get home," I remember him telling my mom. He was showing her how to avoid the interstate highway and drive the back roads to reach my grandmother's house in our old hometown, 120 miles to the north.

"Keep the suitcases in the car," warned dad. "If war comes, just get the kids and go. I'll find you."
I didn't believe him. I was a "duck-and-cover" kid. I knew about nuclear weapons. I was sure I'd never see him again.

My father -- an air force pilot -- kissed each of us, asked us kids to take care of mom, said he loved us and left. I didn't know why, or where, he was going -- as the daughter of a Cold War warrior, I was conditioned not to ask questions, just to take orders.

After he left I was so scared I threw up, but I didn't tell anybody because I was ashamed. I didn't want my daddy to go away, I wanted him to stay home and hide under the bed with me when the bomb went off. But I'd been taught to be brave; I cried into my pillow so no one would hear me.

The next day we learned from television that the Soviet Union had put missiles in Cuba and President John F. Kennedy had ordered Nikita Khrushchev to remove them. My father, along with thousands of other military men, was in south Florida awaiting orders to react if the Russians did not comply.

For 13 days in October 1962, the world held its breath. Then Khrushchev blinked, my dad came home and I was the luckiest girl in the world.

I hope that little girl who wrote to Bush is as lucky as I was. I hope all the boys and girls kissing their military daddies and mommies goodbye can welcome them home again. Bush used that fourth-grader's letter to say: "an entire generation of youngsters has gained new understanding of the value of freedom, and its cost in duty and sacrifice" since the terrorism of September 11.

Perhaps. But I don't believe any child, anywhere, willingly gives up a parent for any reason. They just act brave and cry into their pillow.

© 2001 The Women Syndicate

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