Over the course of the last year I have traveled quite a bit. Every week, as I waited for my flight back to Portland, I saw hundreds of soldiers in desert camouflage fatigues waiting to catch their flights to Iraq. Some of them seemed older and less anxious about what was ahead of them, some of them seemed like boys and were very uneasy. On some of the flights the flight attendants made announcements thanking these soldiers for their sacrifices, and everyone gave them a round of applause.
One afternoon I was riding the train out to B concourse with several soldiers. One had a cane and seemed to be going home due to his injuries, and two others were on their way over to Iraq. One of them was quiet and not making eye contact with anyone, the other seemed very innocent and young ,and was talking to anyone who would make eye contact with him. I listened to him answer a young girls questions and thought that he was very polite and decent to her.
As he spoke I noticed a patch that was attached to his sleeve with Velcro. I looked around and the other soldiers had the Velcro loop side on their uniforms but no patch. This young man was fidgety and polite, he had on thick black glasses, and on his sleeve a patch that said, in big block letters, O POS. The harsh reality that this patch represented was depressing to me, and, as the emotion welled up inside of me, I felt like giving him a hug. This could easily be my son talking to the young girl on the train. I suddenly realized that I don't know my sons blood type. I wondered if this young man's family knew his.
When my son was in high school his school paper ran an article about the gulf war and that it was a war for oil. At the time it seemed naive and inaccurate because I remembered the feelings that I had experienced as the planes disappeared into the world trade centers, and I knew that this war was about more than oil. All these years later, whatever it was about has long since ceased to be why we are still there.
My nephew was in Iraq for a year, and for the last couple months that he was over there I regularly had dreams that I was with him lying face down on a rooftop that was covered in broken glass, as gunfire erupted around us. I wonder if he wore the same patch on his sleeve.
As I sit here I realize that I don't even know my own blood type. I used to ; it was on my military I.D. It never occurred to me why it was there.
Peace and decency in the world.
It's only six words, how can it be too much to ask?
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