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American Hero

John Kojak

    “Get up,” her husband told her. “The last shuttle is leaving in a few minutes. If we don’t go now we’re going to miss it.”
    “Good,” she thought. Why would she want to pretend to smile and wave as her only son was being sent off to war? She couldn’t bear the thought of what might happen to him over there. Every day the television showed things getting worse. There was fighting everywhere, in places that made no sense to her, Fall-u-jah, Kir-kuk, Bagh-dad. The names sounded like nightmares, and they were.
    Now, the day that she dreaded most had arrived. Her son was about to ship out, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her husband, her friends, and even her son had tried to console her. They kept telling her that everything would be all right; that Michael would be OK. She wanted to believe them, but she knew it was a lie.
    “You don’t want to miss Michael’s ceremony do you?”
    “Ceremony celebration,” she replied morosely, as she looked down at the invitation that was folded out on the bed beside her:

The Honor of Your Presence is Requested at the
23^rd Infantry Battalion
Deployment Ceremony Celebration
On Sunday, November 2nd, 2003 at 1100
Fort Carson, CO

    She was in no mood to celebrate, but her husband knew that his wife would never forgive herself if something happened to their son and they were not there to see him before he left. They had to go. He reached down and grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her up off of the bed. “We’re leaving now,” he said.
    She was almost catatonic, and could barely stand, but he held her up as he shepherded her out of their room and to the elevator. When they reached the lobby of the hotel, the large automatic glass doors slid open and she could see the long white shuttle-van idling ominously in front of the hotel. A thin, tired looking old man with a face like an ancient apple stood sullenly next to the open cargo doors.
    “Got room for two more?’ her husband asked.
    “If we don’t, we’ll make some,” the old man said.
    The van was filled with well-dressed, happy looking people. Some were holding on to red, white, and blue balloons, and others held small American flags. All were wearing smiles.
    “Suck it in folks,” the old man said to the others as he ushered the slightly built, stern looking man and his wife, a dark, tightly wrapped bundle of raw emotions into the van. It was a warm fall day and most of the other passengers were dressed in light clothing, but not her. She was dressed in a thick grey winter coat with a long brown scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. She wore sunglasses, and pulled the collars of her coat up to try and hide her anguish racked face, but it was no use. There was no hiding her pain.
    As they climbed on board, the young woman sitting next to them saw the distress that the man’s wife was in. “Is your wife alright?” she asked as the cargo door slammed shut.
    The girl was young and frail looking, but she was wearing a thin gold wedding band on her left hand. He knew that she would understand, “Our son is deploying to Iraq today, and my wife is very worried about him.”
    An elderly black woman sitting behind them leaned forward and placed a grandmotherly hand on his wife’s shoulder, hoping to comfort her. “My grandson is shipping out today too, child. So I know how you feel.”
    She had heard that before. That people knew how she felt, but they didn’t. “How could they?” she thought. This was her son, not theirs. She had devoted her entire life him. To protecting him, to keeping him safe. She wouldn’t even let him play football, for Christ’s sake. But now he was being sent someplace where people were going to try to kill him. And even if he was lucky enough not to get shot, not to get blown up, even if he didn’t die, he would still be under the constant threat of death. She was sick of people who thought they knew how she felt. How could they?
    “Don’t worry,” said a Hispanic woman sitting in the back with her two young daughters. “My husband is also being sent to Iraq. But I know that god will protect him, and I’m sure that god will protect your son as well,” she said as she made the sign of the cross.
    “Yes, thank you.” the husband replied.
    He knew that they were all going to the same place, and that everyone in the van must be suffering in his or her own way, but they all seemed to be handling it pretty well, under the circumstances, except his wife. He could see the concern on the other passenger’s faces and felt that he should try to explain to them why she was so upset. “It’s just///he is our only son, you see? He is all we have.”
    “I hear you,” the Hispanic woman replied casually. “I don’t know what I would do without my husband.”
    He knew he shouldn’t say anymore, but he could not stop himself from trying to make her, to make them, understand. “Yes, but if something happens to your husband at least you will still have your children. You will still have a reason to live. What does a mother do if she loses her only child?”
    An angry eyed middle-aged woman who had been sitting quietly in the back quickly spoke up. “Are you suggesting that your wife is suffering more than the rest of us because her son is an only child?” she asked in a scornful tone. “I have two sons who are deploying overseas, and I can tell you that I am not suffering half as much for each of my kids, I’m suffering double!”
    The husband knew that he had crossed a line, but couldn’t stop himself from trying to make them truly understand. “I’m sorry,” he told the woman. I wasn’t trying to suggest that you don’t love your children as much as we love ours, but at least if one of your sons dies you would have the other one left to comfort you. That’s all I am saying.”
    The woman’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits and her lips tightened as she told him coldly, “Yes, but if one of your children survives you have to go on living, you have to go on suffering. If your only child dies you don’t have to go on. Do you?”
    “Ah, horseshit,” a large man sitting next to the driver said in a low country drawl. “These are grown men we’re talking about. They don’t want us crying for them. They know what’s at stake. Believe me. We raised them to do right, and if serving their country is what they want to do then we need to respect that.”
    The other passengers nodded in silently agreement with the man, but not her.
    “So, lady,” the large man said as he turned to speak directly to the grieving mother. “You should stop crying and start grinning like me—because before my son died he told me that he was the happiest that he had ever been. He said that the guys he was serving with were like his brothers. He told me that he would do anything for them; even give his life, because he knew that they would do the same thing for him. That’s why I am not upset that he’s gone. Hell, I don’t even think of it that way. I still see him everywhere. He’s in those little American flags ya’ll are carrying; I see his face every time I see someone in uniform, he’s part of this country now, and he will be forever. He’s an American Hero.”
    The women suddenly stopped crying and looked up at the man. All of this time she had been trying to find some way to make sense of the fact that her son might get hurt, maybe even killed, but nothing her husband, her friends, or even her son, could say had made her feel any better. But now, after listening to this man, she felt a sudden strange sense of relief. If someone who had lost his son could be this strong, surely she could stop crying and find the courage to accept the fact that if her son did get hurt, even killed, he did so serving his country alongside the brothers that he had always wanted. He would be a hero, he would live on forever as a symbol of freedom, it was all beginning to make sense—until the frail young bride sitting beside her whispered, “I don’t want my husband to be a hero.” The girl’s words hit the woman like a bullet. She didn’t want her son to be a hero either.
    As the shuttle van pulled up in front of the Army base, the woman, who had not yet spoken a word, took off her sunglasses and looked directly into the eyes of the man whose son had been killed, and asked, “Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that your son lives on as you say?”
    The smile that had filled the stoic man’s face began to harden, and his eyes suddenly filled with tears as he appeared, at that very moment, to realize that his son was really dead. Dead and gone forever. His lips quivered and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead unleashed a guttural wail of such agony that it sounded like the cry of a father mourning the loss of a thousand dead sons. The other passengers were shocked by the large man’s sudden outpouring of grief and hurriedly exited the van, but she stayed. She understood his anguish. She knew his pain. After a few moments, she reached out and touched him gently on the hand. “I know,” she whispered before climbing quietly out of the van. As she stood in line with her husband to enter the base, she looked around at the faces in the crowd. Most looked happy, some proud, some even looked excited. She could see that they didn’t understand, they didn’t know. “How could they?” she thought. If they knew, they wouldn’t be carrying balloons and waving little flags. They wouldn’t do that if they knew it would be their son, or their daughter, who would be the next American Hero. The End.

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