Off to War (5 page)

My dad sent an email to my mom saying that the Afghan kids were asking for pens and pencils and paper, and that gave
me the idea to get people here to donate school supplies that could be sent over. I got the word around, and lots of people donated. We had a lot of pickups, a lot of boxes. I broke my knee doing it! We had just picked up and dropped off a carload of school supplies, and I turned to run back to the car so we could pick up some more, and I slipped and hit my knee. I was in a cast for awhile, but I mend fast. The military helped us get the supplies over to Afghanistan.

Dad was able to keep in touch with us a bit while he was gone. We emailed him about just ordinary things, like my fish, which he bought me before he left. He bought me four goldfish. They were doing okay until I put another fish in with them that killed them all.

Dad sent Mom pictures and a video from Afghanistan, and she put them all together on DVDs, with music. Sometimes it's funny, because she says we need to laugh. Like, there's Julie Andrews singing “My Favorite Things,” while soldiers are uncoiling razor wire, flying helicopters, kicking in doors, pictures of big fields of marijuana. Stuff like that.

He also sent her pictures of the base. It's pretty rough living. Not what we're used to here. She made the DVD for the padres to show to the newbies and reservists going over to Afghanistan for the first time so they can see what they're getting into.

Dad was in the military for two years before he met Mom. He likes it because he says it gives him a higher sense of purpose, and he takes pride in his country. He feels proud, too, for going through all the difficulties in Afghanistan. I think he also likes being on the edge and surviving danger.

When he came home on leave, my mom went to pick him up. They had promised me a dog, so they picked the dog up at the same time. I loved that dog so much! It was like a gift from Dad that made it so special. Well, my dog tried to attack my
brother's dog — my brother has a working dog, a Jack Russell terrier — because he has special needs. We tried to fix the problem. I was really attached to that dog because my dad gave him to me and Dad had gone to Afghanistan. We tried for a year, but we had to get rid of it.

We were living in Winnipeg when Dad first left for Afghanistan, but by the time he came home on leave, Mom had moved us to where we are now, just on the outside of CFB Shilo. There's more room out here, and it's quieter. Off base, we get a bigger house and a bigger yard, but all my friends are on base, so I have quite a walk to go to see them. I go to school on the base.

In Winnipeg we were surrounded by the civilian world. Civilian kids don't understand anything. When I stayed away from school they called me Skipper. They didn't understand it was because my dad was gone and I was too sad to go to school. I felt sick a lot, too, when he was gone — worried and nervous. I couldn't concentrate on school work even when I went to school.

I don't go to any of the groups on base for kids of deployed parents. Some kids like to talk about it and some kids want to just live their life and try to keep thinking about it for when it's really needed, so it doesn't bother them. I'm the kind who keeps it away. My friends and I do go to the teen center on base to watch movies or play pool or cards, or just hang out after school.

Deep in the forest around the base they have field training, and we can hear a lot of bombs and guns. I've gotten used to it. It was freaky at first. We didn't hear that sort of thing in Winnipeg. One morning we saw a lot of soldiers loading a bunch of LAVs onto a train car to take to CFB Wainwright for practice.

Dad had a lot of combat stress when he came home. He
tried to hide it from us kids, but I could see that he was a lot quicker to get angry. Before he went, he was so patient with my brothers, more patient even than Mother Teresa would be, my mom says. When he came back he lost it. His patience was gone — not just with my brothers, but with me, too. He'd start in on me for making just the smallest sort of thirteen-year-old comment. He'd get so upset about the smallest, dumbest things.

He was just starting to calm down again when he got sent away for training, and he'll come back from training just in time to go back to Afghanistan for another year.

It was hardest on my mom when he came home because he'd hit her in his sleep. He wouldn't mean to. It was just combat stress, but he'd be dreaming or having a nightmare, and he would just start punching her. She thought she was going crazy until she talked to one of the other army wives and learned it was pretty common. That lasted for a few weeks until he settled in.

The whole deployment has improved my relationship with my mom, but it didn't start out that way. At first she would keep stuff from me. She didn't want to worry me. She'd hear things from Afghanistan and keep them to herself. I knew she was bothered by something but didn't know what it was. I thought she was angry with me. I was hurting and angry and lonely, and we weren't talking to each other. This big space opened up between us until one day we had this huge fight. I told her, “Mom, you're not helping me, you're hurting me.” Since then, things have gotten a lot better. We're communicating again.

I really admire my mom. She's kept us together through all of this.

One way the government could improve on all this — although it may be more expensive for them — would be to
send better-trained people over to Afghanistan, people who have been in the army longer. Then maybe there wouldn't be so many deaths. And they shouldn't keep our soldiers there for so long. And maybe the soldiers that are newer, train them better and give them all the information they need. I think some of the deaths are from not enough training.

One of my neighbors was killed in Afghanistan. They had just moved here, and they had their house built brand new, just for them. They'd just moved in when their dad was sent to Afghanistan.

When the announcement came in that a thirty-three-year-old father of three had died, we got a lot of questions from people because that's exactly like our family. Our mom got really worried, but it wasn't our dad.

The family still lives in the same house. The kids are all younger than me. I know them, but I haven't asked them about their dad's death. If they've gotten over it, I wouldn't want to bring it up and make them think about it again. I think my mom's tried to help. She's like that. She likes to do things for people. We're looking after the padre's dogs now while he's in Afghanistan.

I'm not going to join the military. I'm no good at waking up early! Maybe I'd join if I didn't have to leave home, but that's not the way it works. Girls can do anything guys can do, and the military lets women do lots of things, but I just don't think it's for me. I don't know what I want to do. Something with horses, probably.

My brothers just take each day as it comes. They don't really understand what Dad's doing. They just think he's in an army tank in the sand somewhere.

I get through the hard times by spending time with my horse. Horses take my mind off things. Their personalities are funny. My horse stays in a barn up a couple of roads from here.

We'll always need an army. There's always going to be something that happens and people are always going to fight. One of the jobs of the army is to deal with people who rebel against things, and people will always rebel.

Eric
— I'm not five anymore. Daddy kills bad guys. I want to do what he does when I get bigger, or maybe be a medic. I could still kill bad guys in my spare time.

We miss Daddy when he goes away. He goes away for a long time, then he comes back for a little while, then he goes away again. When he's here we play video games together, and he takes us places. I want him to get home.

Cole
— I'm in grade one. I've got army gloves, an army hat, army pants and a brand-new machine gun. I like the army because they get to ride tanks. I saw tanks in the museum on base, but they didn't let me climb on them because you have to be big for that.

Daddy is an important soldier. He's away now on training and is coming back in a lot of sleeps. He fires guns, does pushups and jumping jacks. Lots of hard work.

I'm going to be a soldier when I grow up because they have guns and I like shooting bad guys. The hard part would be dying. Flying a jet and smashing it would be hard, too. I don't know how to fly a jet yet. They'd have to teach me.

Afghanistan is on the other side of the world. They have guns there, and tanks, and even Jeeps. Daddy's job is to shoot the bad guys. Bad guys don't have to stay bad guys. They could change and become good guys and then Daddy wouldn't have to shoot them.

If an Afghan boy came to visit me, we could play together with my blocks and guns.

When Daddy's home we play with cars and he naps every day.
He watches out the door for me when I go to my friend's house to make sure I get there safe. He tells me I have to look both ways when I cross the street so I won't get run over by a car.

Canadian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 2002 to take part in Operation Enduring Freedom, the name given to the US-led invasion in response to the events of September 11, 2001. Canadians are currently committed to staying in Afghanistan until at least 2011. In addition to direct fighting against the Taliban and other Afghans who oppose outsiders occupying their country, Canadian soldiers are involved in reconstruction projects — building roads, schools and clinics, training police, removing land mines and distributing humanitarian aid.

Mikyla and Marina are sisters who live on the base at Petawawa. Their father is a supply tech who recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan.

Mikyla
— Our dad's been in the military as long as I've known him. I think he joined up because he liked tanks and things like that.

He went to Afghanistan last August. I know that he really wanted to go, to see what it was like.

I felt sad and disappointed and scared when he went overseas.
There were a lot of people leaving on the same day. We took him to the airport, and there were a lot of people crying. There was an escalator at the airport, and I went down it after we'd said goodbye. I looked back and he was still waving at us. It was really sad, seeing him go.

We dropped him off in the afternoon, then me and my mom went to East Side Mario's. Then we went shopping. It was a good thing to do because we stopped crying and felt a little better. For a little while it took our minds off him leaving.

I worried about him getting hit, or bombed, or shot. Dad almost got hit by a rocket. It went right past him, and he just ducked for cover. He was just on his break having a cup of coffee when it happened. I think he was on the base. The rocket came right into the base.

He phoned us from Afghanistan. For me the phone calls were hard, and just hearing his voice was, like, strange. He would sound kind of shaky when he called. It was hard to know what to say.

Marina
— It wasn't easy for me, either. Sometimes when he'd call, we would cry.

Mikyla
— He was gone over Christmas. It just didn't feel right because it's supposed to be a family thing. We went to my aunt's house and tried to have a nice Christmas, but it wasn't the same. There were no presents from Dad, and he wasn't there.

Marina
— He didn't miss our birthdays, though. He almost missed Mikyla's, but got home two days before.

Mikyla
— I was really happy when he came home.

Marina
— That was a good day.

Mikyla
— We got all these gifts, like earrings, and a dress like Afghan girls wear. It's green and has beads on it. It had pants with it.

Marina
— The pants are a little funny. They're different from what we wear.

Mikyla
— Dad was different when he came back. He wouldn't waste any food. Before, he would usually waste something of what he ate, but when he came back he never did that anymore, because he thought about the kids over there who are starving to death.

He wasn't as funny anymore, either. He was sad a lot.

He never talks about it. He says he doesn't like talking about it. I don't want to ask him because it might bring bad memories to him.

He did say that one time, he'd seen these kids on a dead horse, and they were playing on the dead horse like they'd play on a playground. It was a really sad and disgusting sight for him.

Before he left for overseas, he was funny, and he would play around with us a lot. He'd joke around or play cards with us, and do all these things with us. He doesn't play with us anymore now, not really. He spends most of his time on the computer, looking up photographs. Or watches TV.

Marina
— Or he plays video games.

Mikyla
— He took a whole bunch of pictures over there, so he'll usually look at those. On TV, he'll probably watch war things or war shows or war movies. He wasn't so much into them before he left. So he's different.