52 Weeks of Cookies by Maggie McCreath

Author:Maggie McCreath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Familius
Published: 2016-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

Rest and Relaxation, Part 2

2 September 2007–5 September 2007

Passing the time with Buddy, my soldier son!

Despite all the learned opinions I have encountered regarding the error of parents trying to be their children’s “friends,” I have to say that my kids are two of my closest friends. And, though I have always encouraged them to stand on their own and find some grand adventures to live (I guess like being a soldier at war?), I have also encouraged them to keep me in their lives as well.

Beyond the obvious burdens of having a son deployed to a war zone, I think the most difficult thing I faced during the previous eight months of the deployment was my lack of communication with Buddy. Sure, I wrote him at least once a week, sending him cookies and other goodies from home, but Buddy did not always have the time or the energy to write back. I knew he called me whenever he could, but it certainly was not as often as he did when he was here in the States. With that being said, one of the nicest things about having Buddy home was simply being able to sit and talk with him and to hear firsthand exactly how he was doing.

I discovered that the years I spent working at the Pentagon with all those Vietnam veterans—and the hours I spent listening to the tales of their own experiences with war—made the biggest difference in the simplest ways. I do not want to rehash the different political views of their day; that has been done by all sides, repeatedly, since the days of their service overseas decades ago. However, the simple fact was that there was a common thread throughout all of their stories—there seemed to be a feeling of isolation once they redeployed to the States. Whether it was because they were unsure of how their stories would be received or whether their stories were just too raw to recollect, let alone to retell—even, if not especially, to those they were closest to—they all felt a similar pressure to keep their stories bottled up inside. The culmination of all my discussions with these guys taught me to be patient when it came to my son—let him talk when he needed and when he wanted to—not to pressure and, above all, not to judge—certainly not what he said and, even more importantly, not what he kept hidden away.

For Buddy, this was not as dramatic as it might sound. I think my son is a stand-up comic at heart. No matter how a given story began, most of time, there was a punch line at the end that left you laughing. Needless to say, with all of us as a willing audience, my son was full of reminiscences and anecdotes regarding the FHOTA and others during his time in Iraq.

Generally speaking, news regarding the FHOTA had been relatively scarce since the beginning of the deployment. The different members of the group ended

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