“I Really Don’t Think We Are Going To Make It Out Of Here Alive….”
Americablog points us to Buzzflash for this piece, by the mother of a serving US soldier, that shows what the war actually means to real people every day.
All those PNACers who conspired to illegally invade a sovereign nation, no matter how reprehensible its ruler, should wake up to a call like this each morning and be forced to listen to their child in fear and anguish for their life, every single day, and be helpless to do anything. And I want this to go on forever.
For the poodles and lesser players, let them wake up each day in the mind of a mother whose son is in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or Bhagram – a woman who has seen the pictures. For the media enablers and apologists, may they spend eternity cowering in a ruined building as ‘shock and awe’ explodes endlessly around their heads.
My Son in Iraq: I Know That It Happened Because I Heard It
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Teri MackeyThe day started pretty much like all of the others since my son had left for Iraq. I automatically woke up to surf the major news networks at 3 A.M. to see if anything newsworthy had happened in Baghdad while I had slept. It seemed as if it had been a quiet night and there were no new reports, so I turned off the television and went back to sleep. The phone rang and I woke up in a nanosecond, which was a trait that I had mastered since the first call I had gotten in the middle of the night from a war zone.
“Hey Mom it?s me.” Something my son always said every time he called, but this time his voice sounded unusual. He had a really serious tone in his voice and the automatic gunfire in the background was loud and more constant than usual. My heart began to race and I took a deep breath.
“Hey, I’m trapped on a rooftop and I don’t think we are going to make it out of here, so I just called to tell you that I loved you and that I am thinking of all of you.” The gunfire in the background was so loud that he had to pause, and then he continued. “We were out on patrol and were just getting ready to return to base and a bunch of our guys got overrun and so we went to help them, but when we got close we got overrun as well and had to retreat to this rooftop.”
I could hear yelling in the background and then big explosions. The phone then seemed to be put on the ground and there was more yelling and automatic gunfire, but this time it was my son who was doing the shooting. My son picked up the phone and in an out of breath voice said, “I really don’t think we are going to make it out of here alive. If we wait longer to get off this rooftop there is no way we can make it back because we do not have enough ammo and it is getting dark. We have called in air support and it has not come yet, and if they do not come in a minute we are all going to be dead. Just tell everybody that I love them and if I do not call you back within four hours that means I did not make it.”
“We love you too son and we are proud of you?you are a good man.” About that time, a jet flying over interrupted our conversation and it sounded as if it was right over the earpiece of the phone. I had to move the phone away from my ear, the sound subsided and then I heard loud explosions and a helicopter and massive firepower.
“Hear that! Hear that! There are jets and helicopters flying over.”
There was more automatic gunfire that I could hear coming from his position and I heard the distinctive high pitch of a mortar round coming in and I knew they were getting mortared, but the mortar missed. I had learned to identify the sound of incoming mortars in previous conversations because mortars were a usual event at the camp where my son was located. The jets flew over again and I could hear them in the background roaring and bombs exploding and again we had to abandon our conversation.
“This is kinda cool in a f***** up kind of way. I have to go-love you.”
“I love you too.” And that was it; the phone went dead.
