The second-worst call

The worst phone call I can image ever getting is one where something horrible has happened to one of my children. I don't lie awake—any more, at least—worrying that that might happen; they all are adults now, and they appear to be reasonably healthy and happy.

The second-worst call is the one I got at 4:30 yesterday morning.

My middle child is a soldier, and built in to that description is the contingency that he can be injured or killed; it's just part of the job.

That contingency is exacerbated if he is deployed to a war zone. He has been in dangerous situations before: he volunteered for the Army Reserves shortly after Shrub Bush did his Yosemite Sam act in Iraq because my son believed our country had damaged a country that he needed to help clean up. I recognized that our nation was losing soldiers there and I worried about him, but I also had faith that he would come home safe and sound.

This time the war zone is Afghanistan, and I am not nearly so sure. We went into this war too fast and with too little consideration of who we were fighting and how we needed to fight; Shrub happily oversaw the dismissal of some of our most critical personnel when he fired large numbers of Arabic translators because he was more interested in their sexual orientation than in their skills, and he left us exposed to an enemy we could not understand linguistically nor culturally. As far as I can tell, we have never moved much beyond that, and our short-sighted politicos are less than eager to resolve anything—with the possible exception of dismantling our government altogether.


My phone doesn't often ring at 4:30. I shrugged off the blankets, fumbled a bit in the dark, and picked up the receiver.

"Hey," he said. "We're trying to get out of here; our plane's been delayed for hours. I hate snow." I had noticed on my weather-checker that the temperature in Baumholder had been 17 degrees a few hours earlier.

"On your way to Afghanistan?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Did you get your lunch card?"

"No." He's been eating at the local fast-food shops. Presumably, the card made it to his post, but he had been too absorbed with preparations for his trip to even check his mail. I should expect it back here in a couple of weeks.

"I've gotta go; looks like they're finally loading us."

"I love you, son."

"You, too."

That's the last I've heard from him, and my heart sticks in my throat every time of recall that call.

The second-worst call in the world.