March 16, 2003

War

"Jan. 15, 1991, 6:15 p.m.

"War! Almost, anyway. If Saddam Hussein doesn't leave Kuwait in 5 hours and 45 minutes, there will be WAR!!!"

The words were penciled on white notebook paper in a loose-leaf journal kept by a not-quite 12-year-old girl who, at the time, predicted a catastrophic world war.

A dozen years later, I don't recall writing those words, but I do remember what happened two days later. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein did not meet the United States' demands to leave Kuwait by midnight, and on Jan. 17, 1991, an Allied strike began.

The world had changed a little.

I came home from school that Thursday afternoon, walked through my front door and my mother was sitting in her rocking chair next to the radio.

"We're at war."

As her words echoed through my head, an electric chill moved through my body. Thoughts of World War II swept through my mind. I'd read about World War II for as long as I could remember, and I knew exactly where to find books on the subject in the non-fiction section of my library.

At that age, I had begun to realize what a monumental mark the war left in history. In all likelihood, I had distant relatives who died in concentration camps. I could picture myself in the shoes of Anne Frank, a girl not much older than myself when she went into hiding with her family.

I imagined thousands of soldiers, all looking exactly like one another but each with a different life story.

The Persian Gulf War, known as Operation Desert Storm, did not become the World War III my young mind imagined, but it still affected me. Though I grew up without television, we had the radio to provide news updates, and my mother knew exactly when to tell us children to be quiet so she could hear the latest newscast.

As a sixth-grader, life continued much the same as it had before "Scud Missiles" and "Saddam Hussein" entered my vocabulary. I played soccer during school recesses, and I read Berenstain Bear books to my youngest sister. I eagerly ticked off days until my birthday, and I took tests in school.

Shortly after the war began, my piano teacher invited me to a women's gathering where we made Valentine's Day cards for soldiers overseas. I don't remember what I wrote to those soldiers, but I do recall feeling proud that I could somehow help.

Though the concept would not really sink in until years later, when my former classmates began joining the military, I did know that troops were going overseas because they had been called to duty.

Today, some people are protesting the war while others berate the protesters. Rather than plant myself firmly on one side or the other, I use my profession as a journalist as a sort of an excuse to remain objective and avoid making a decision. Like nearly every facet of life, I see both sides.

But there is one thing I do know. I know that men and women have willingly put on a uniform and vowed to protect the country in which I live.

Parents are welcoming a new generation of children home from school in the same way my mother did: "We're at war." Military lingo is making its way back into everyday conversation as more troops kiss their loved ones goodbye and embark on a voyage of undetermined length.

They're preparing to fight so that school children can still play outside at recess and have birthday parties.

They're bracing for a fight so that peace protesters can still have a dream.

No matter which side I look at it from, those troops deserve my respect.