When the war is over

by Rich Moniak, Voices in Wartime Staff

It was a quiet holiday here in my Southeast Alaska home. The landscape wasn’t white, the inside wasn’t decorated, and my children were elsewhere. My oldest son, Michael, was in Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, thousands of miles and dozens of hours away from Iraq, where he spent Christmas two years ago and may return to spend the next one.

It’s easy to hope the war is over before then. The word easy is troubling though, because it asks too many questions related to forgetfulness. If it is over, will my efforts on behalf of peace be replaced by other pursuits? Will I stop wondering about the fate of other people because American weapons aren’t armed and ready to fire into their neighborhoods? Will I be able to relax believing Michael will never again be spending the holidays, or any other day, in a war zone?

The last question taunts me the most, because I have to wonder if it’s the one that leads to the other two. Michael was in Iraq during the 2003 invasion. I never supported that, but it wasn’t until after he left for a second tour there in August 2005 that I can say I opposed the war. Before then, I was a silent observer, aware but unengaged in expressing my beliefs. Indeed, I was merely a statistic for the pollsters because my supposed convictions were really reduced to mere opinions.

Before Michael left for his second deployment, the last hours we spent together were on the slopes of a mountain above downtown Juneau. As we traversed the western flanks of Gold Ridge, the first high point on the way to Mt. Roberts, he was given the full dose of my armchair activism temporarily moved to the outdoors.

The civilized city below disappeared from view at the lesser peak, where a fork in the trail led either east to Gold Ridge or dipped into a saddle below Gastineau Peak. As we stood there deciding which way to go, I realized that Michael had hardly said a word all the way up. I apologized to him for the endless ranting monologue he’d just heard while I wondered where he stood. Where did I stand in his eyes? Did he imagine I didn’t support him because I didn’t support the decisions of his commander-in-chief?

He told me it was ok. He said he wasn’t into the political controversies, but added that he always listened to me because I made him think of things he normally wouldn’t pay attention to. Then he said “I respect your views. Mostly, I respect your right to have them and express them. If I am supposed to be fighting for them, why would I deny them to you.”

Michael’s brief speech shattered one of the easiest excuses I had to remain an outsider. No longer could I tell myself it was a necessity to remain silent in order to protect my relationship with my son. Dismissing this was to expose my mind to more complexities. By accepting I could openly oppose the war that he was prepared to participate in, where did I place his personal safety next to the innocent citizens of Iraq mostly imagined as children of parents like me?

To honestly believe that the death of any innocent child is wrong, I also have to pray that the weapons that can be used protect Michael are never used in the blindness of only thinking the enemy is threatening. I found myself anxious about the possibility that he might kill a child in a moment of intense fighting. The “collateral damage” from bombing raids that might spare him having to face a combat situation were still wrong.

I am not a believer in anything literal, nor a reader of the Christian Bible. Yet some of the hundreds of parables within it occupy the vague recesses of my awareness. I don’t claim to understand these, or even know the meaning given to them by others. But as they gnaw at edges of these thoughts, new questions rise with them. What is the meaning of Abraham’s offering Isaac as a sacrifice to his God?

One translation of the parable reads that when Abraham was about to take his son’s life God said to him “Abraham, Stop! Do not hurt your son. You have proven your faith and shown how much you love Me by willing to sacrifice your son for Me. Therefore, I shall bless you and your family, and through you, I shall bless all the nations on earth”.

All nations are blessed, not just “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” When we imagine soldiers sacrificing themselves for our nation, aren’t we placing America above God who told Abraham not to take his son’s life? The sons and daughters of all nations should be free from the sacrifices of war offered up an authoritative ruler.

But once a nation goes to war, a just war or not, who chooses who lives and dies? Doesn’t Isaac represent all the innocent children? Is my son an innocent child or a participant ordered into battle? In my heart I see him as my son and deny the latter if I am turning my back on the innocent so that he’ll be less likely to die there.

The last conflict is one that I’ll never find peace in. And it’s not only a real question if Michael goes back, but it asks if I am ignoring the possibility his safety was enhanced because our military might shelled a city when it only thought all the innocent civilians were gone.

The sad truth is I needed Michael to go to war to discover these questions. Now there is no easy way to forget them. The easy answers, such as trusting it was God that stopped Abraham from sacrificing his own son, only serve to relieve me from the burden of my complicity in the killing that I didn’t try to prevent. When the war is over, the questions will remain, and all I can do is place them ahead of returning to a life of silent convictions.